B38 Ocean - Routing VHF mic to cockpit

[Jeffatoms]

Puget Sound owner of B38 Ocean and recently purchased a Std. Horizon 2200 to get AIS targets onto chartplotter.   That works great and was an easy install but we would like the RAM mic in the cockpit from the nav station base.

Wondering what wire routes to get microphone wire from nav station to steering pedistal.

[Yngmar]

Did this job last winter on our 40 Ocean, which is almost the same layout as the 38 Ocean (I think shower and toilet are swapped inside the heads). Cable goes from the nav station aft under the holding tank (behind the shower wall) and from there through the hollow stringer on the floor that separates shower from toilet into the engine room (same way as the freshwater pipes to the heads). Then up into the binnacle. Socket for the handset behind the cockpit table, so it's protected from kicks and cut a speaker mounting hole in the side.

[Jeffatoms]

Many thanks.  I had been trying to go high from the toe rail to the portside engine vent and then down but couldn't get through the tabbing.

I'll give this a try.

[Jeffatoms]

UPDATE:  Wow, that was easy! 

Not only was I able to route the VHF ram mic to the helm, after finding the "hollow stringer" I also split the AIS off the back of my Standard Horizon GX2200 two wire NMEA0183 "talker" and sent it to my cockpit's Raymarine E80 so that it is now AIS, GPS and chip redundant with the older, dimmer C80 at the nav station which has the radar overlay.  The key to my "new" chartplotter set-up is simple, non-networked redundancy.

Thanks again!

[Yngmar]

Glad it worked. I've found the Bavarias and especially the Ocean models to be very well designed for maintainability and service access, far better than any other production boat I've seen, or even more much expensive boats.