[sailingdog]

Actually, from what I was told, Performance Cruising is no longer recommending Peter Kennedy as their preferred electrical contractor, at least for the Telstars. Maybe, his experience with the Geminis and how to upgrade them is why they still recommend him for the upgrades on the Gemini. Maybe it was this one person he had doing the work, but in my dealings with Peter, it seems once he got the money, he had no reason to stand behind the work he did.

Personally, I would have to boat delivered to the West Coast and sail the boat a while and figure out what you really want/need on it. Once you have a good idea of what you need/want, then hire an electrical contractor locally, so that if you do have problems, you can have them fixed locally. Even if Peter were willing to fix the problems his installation caused, it would require me taking my boat back down to Annapolis. There is no reason a local electrical contractor can't do the work while you're living aboard.

As for what you need to do with the Gemini really depends on what you're doing with the Gemini.

Basic upgrades would include a larger battery bank, additional light fixtures and outlets in various places throughout the boat, and such. Adding solar panels and/or a wind generator might be a good idea if you're planning on longer distance cruising or staying on a mooring or the hook for any period of time——since you need to have some way to charge the batteries without using the engine IMHO.

You might also need/want to add a ground plane and SSB transceiver or additional navigation instruments. A stereo system is also a common upgrade on many boats. Additional cockpit lighting might also be good if you're going to be using the cockpit at night for entertaining.

I don't know how you're going to use the boat... so these are just basic suggestions that would probably be needed on any liveaboard/long-distance cruising boat. They were things I had requested Peter Kennedy do, and most of them he screwed up pretty badly.

BTW, I just found out that the two connectors for the solar panels, port and starboard, are wired differently, and if you tried to plug the port panel into the starboard panel power connector, you wouldn't get electricity to the batteries and vice versa. IMHO, it would make sense to wire the two panels identically, so that either could be used on either side of the boat, don't you agree??? Also, I'd point out that I was present in the Annapolis area for at least two of the weeks his company was working on my boat. He delivered the boat four weeks later than he promised as well.