13 August 2026

UK marine technology company Smart Boat Ltd has completed a major electrical refit aboard Golden Globe Race competitor Gunnar Christensen’s Hans Christian 34, Pompoen, ahead of his 2026 solo, non-stop circumnavigation.

Rather than simply replacing ageing wiring, Smart Boat has used the refit to introduce its new SmartWiring modular electrical distribution system, designed to make marine electrical installations safer, easier to understand and easier to diagnose when something goes wrong.

At the heart of Pompoen’s refit are Smart Boat’s modular Smart Terminal Blocks, available in 4-way and 8-way configurations, with standard 40A and high-current 80A versions. Each provides individually fused outgoing circuits, allowing every electrical device to run directly from its protected output to the equipment it supplies.

The system uses duplex wiring, keeping positive and negative connections for each circuit together. This greatly simplifies tracing a circuit compared with conventional installations where positive wiring may terminate at a fuse panel while negative conductors disappear into a common busbar.

Each fused output also incorporates an LED indication showing that voltage is present, providing an immediate visual aid when diagnosing electrical problems.

The 8-way Smart Terminal Block can operate as a single eight-circuit distribution point or as two electrically independent four-circuit banks. With its link bar installed, one protected input can supply all eight outputs. Remove the link bar and each group of four circuits can have its own independent supply.

This allows equipment to be divided into functional groups, such as navigation and communications on one supply and domestic equipment, lighting or pumps on another. This provides greater fault containment: a failed fan, pump or lighting circuit should not unnecessarily remove power from critical communications or navigation equipment.

Preparing a boat for the Golden Globe Race isn’t about adding technology for technology’s sake. Gunnar needs an electrical system that he can understand, trust and, if necessary, fault-find himself in the middle of an ocean. We rebuilt the installation around a logical, modular architecture. Every circuit has a clear purpose, faults can be isolated quickly, and the failure of one piece of equipment does not need to compromise unrelated systems. For a solo sailor, that simplicity and resilience really matter.

Chris Saunders Founder at Smart Boat Ltd

Smart Boat’s terminal system has also been designed with future digital monitoring in mind. Smart Terminal Blocks can be daisy-chained to the company’s Smart Terminal Controller, which can monitor individual circuits, provide real-time fault alerts, measure up to two supply voltages and monitor current through a shunt.

That connected functionality is not being used aboard Pompoen during the Golden Globe Race in keeping with the event’s technology restrictions. Outside competition, Gunnar can connect the existing SmartWiring installation to Smart Boat’s wider monitoring platform through mySmartApp.

For Pompoen, the objective was not simply a tidier electrical system, but one designed around reliability, isolation, fault containment and rapid diagnosis — qualities that become particularly important when the nearest electrician may be several thousand miles away.