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Sometimes
As someone with electrical engineering training and considerable experience, it is my humble opinion that the ABYC standards for wire gauge is over specified. Specifically, the 3% voltage drop recommendation is not a sound trade off between cost and benefit. If one wires a boat to a 5% voltage drop, it turns out that for almost all circuits, 14 gauge wire can be used.
Also, very fine stranded wire is not needed. Automobile wire is less finely stranded and takes more abuse that wiring on a boat.
I partly rewired my 1975 Sabre 28 recently and found no loose connectors or fatiguing wires - including the lightning protection wires which are connected to the keel bolts sitting in the bilge water. These are un-tinned wires and they are still in service today. 2011 - 1975 = 35 years.
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