How SERIOUS is Galvanic Corrosion?
What actually causes galvanic corrosion on boats?
Galvanic isolators are essential protection for any boat connected to shore power, because they break the hidden electrical paths that quietly eat away at a boats’ underwater metals.
By blocking low‑voltage DC currents while still maintaining a safe earth connection, they dramatically slow, and even halt galvanic corrosion and reduce costly hull and driveline repairs.
When you plug into a marina supply, your boat’s metalwork is no longer isolated; it becomes part of a large electrical network that can include neighbouring boats and the shore installation, all bonded together through the earth conductor in your shore-power cable. Tiny but continuous currents then flow through the water and back along that earth path, gradually dissolving your hull, outboard, SailDrive and other submerged fittings. This process is invisible day to day, but over time it can seriously thin steel, attack aluminium components and rapidly destroy anodes, pushing up maintenance costs and shortening the life of critical parts.
In extreme cases, unchecked galvanic corrosion can weaken hull plating or fittings so badly that a boat may even be at risk of sinking, especially if a small, normally insignificant accident happens. A high quality galvanic isolator is a low-cost, easy-to-fit safeguard that tackles the root cause of this problem, in seconds.
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