FIRE!

Fire, or do YOU smell smoke?

I talked to mom and dad today. Mom insists i write to my Blog.

OK, write what?

Do you want to hear about the fire? Well it wasn't really a fire. i woke up Saturday morning at 5:15am. Pitch Black. Something smelled burnt, burning. i jumped up, grabbed a flashlight and ran through the boat looking and sniffing. It was that burnt electric smell. I searched everywhere but couldn't find anything, so i turned off all the electrics on the boat, opened the hatches and went back to sleep. Later that morning - after sunrise - i got up and searched again for the cause of the burnt smell. i was afraid it was my motor on the refrigerator blown out. so i turned back on my appliances and sure enough in about five minutes the burning electric smell came back.

in the daylight i could look around and SEE the burnt electric line that runs from the shore power to the boat inlet. The boat had suffered a catastrophic electric meltdown. in the photos you can see where a short caused arching that melted all the connections. it was pretty bad.

After replacing the Inlet Plug. (replace and rewire the burnt out part on the boat outlet) then i had to go buy all new cables. $500. Craig and Angela came over and helped me with the rewire. i climbed down in the engine room to hold the nuts and bolts with pliers while craig did the outside work on deck.

Now i have everything on the boat running and there is no heat coming off the cables. i can sleep soundly and not worry about that happening again. (i have also checked the batteries on my smoke alarm and my fire extinguishers)

All good and safe here on the Sailing Vessel Prodigal.

xo skip