Extension Cords

Extension cords are a pain. They seem to tangle themselves into knots when they are unsupervised in a locker somewhere.  Scott on s/v Valkier has a suggestion...

So someone asked me about what I use for an extension cord on the boat because of a comment I had made about having the perfect one. Everyone knows what a pain extension cords are. They are constantly getting tangled and snarled up, they are a pain to coil back up after using them, they are a pain to un-snarl and pull them out of the cockpit locker after they have become wrapped around every other thing in there. Last but not least is that you can only plug one thing into a standard extension cord. I am constantly having to switch between a drill and a sander or router etc… It just slows stuff down.

How it came about is a long story… lol… not!!!

One day I was in a tool store, not sure where, and saw one of the extension cords in a reel box with 4 outlets built into the box. It was on sale and I thought wow, I need to try that out it would be great on the boat. It has been about a year since that day and it has been everything that I thought it would be and more. The one I got was cheap and I wondered about life span but it is battered and still going strong. Mostly what it has done for me is alleviated a lot of frustration due to the above listed downsides to standard extension cords. It also means that I am more likely to grab stuff to do a quicky project because it is easier to un-spool cable and re-spool it when done. Less time in setup and clean up on both ends of the project. Mine is 25ft in length and I think I want one 50ft and one cable size bigger. However I would bet that I mostly keep using the 25ft one due to size. A 50ft cord and reel will be substantially larger.