Crews Letter #2002 19 Timing Is Everything

Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen:

If you come aboard Perception you are subjected to a safety briefing. It consists of your being told and shown a lot of stuff:

1.      The location and function of the sea cocks.

2.      Location and how to use the heads. There is a standard operating procedure. Nothing is sacred on a boat this size.

3.      Location of the fire extinguishers and the procedure for dealing with fires.

4.      You are assigned a life preserver (PFD for the politically correct) for the duration of the cruise that is combination flotation and harness. It comes with a tether. You are told about jack lines and when life preserver / harness / tether is compulsory.

5.      You are shown the MOB button on the GPS and told the POP (person overboard procedure). The emphasis is on don't go overboard.

6.      You are shown where the gas cutoffs are for the galley stove. How to light it. How the thermocouples on each burner provide an extra level of safety. You are told that if you ever smell gas, alert all of the crew and shut off the gas in the cockpit. We will then air out the cabin and sort out the problem.

7.      Location of the life boat.

The procedure for dealing with fires (#3) emphasizes individual safety and the safety of the crew. It is pointed out that injury from a fire is caused by noxious gasses as well as heat. There are fire extinguishers in the salon, the cockpit and every cabin. If there is a fire, your first responsibility is to notify every member of the crew on the boat. Obviously, if one of the crew is at the pub down the quay, you don't have to go down there and tell him. Each crew member must determine how they are going to get out of the boat. All members are then to pick up the fire extinguisher in whatever part of the boat that they are in and converge to fight the fire. The fire extinguishers are the powdered chemical type. They are good for fighting all types of fires. They are terrible for destroying electronic equipment. If we need to use them, we will. The powder will go everywhere. When it gets on printed electronic circuit boards, it will intermittently short out some circuits rendering the equipment useless.

We left for Istanbul on Thursday morning. The day before, Phyl had trouble sleeping. At 0430 she was playing solitaire on her computer. Perception was connected to shore power (220V). The transformer (220V --> 110V), the battery charger (110V --> 12V) and the air conditioner were running. There was a large bang, smoke and stink. She yelled at me and woke me up. Turned off the shore power switches in the cabin.  Left the cabin. Went to the stern of the cockpit and disconnected the shore power. We converged at the cabin to see that the smoke had come from the high power (>12V) circuit breaker box. The front face of that box is plastic. Part of the face had burned. Part of it had sputtered out and burned the wooden cabinet it is housed in. That area was now cooling off. We opened the battery hold and found nothing amiss in that area. Further inspection of both interior and exterior revealed everything except the high power circuit breaker box to be normal.

At 0800 we called for a repairman. When he arrived, morning of the same day, we opened the breaker box and determined that the shore power wiring prior to reaching the boat side breaker had developed a loose connection. The resulting arcing had melted the insulation and caused a short. 220V, the European standard, is hot stuff. The shore side breaker had not tripped.

During our trip to Istanbul, they reconnected the wires, checked out the high power wiring throughout and rebuilt the front face of the box.

In spite of having gone through the safety briefing several times, neither of us had a fire extinguisher when we converged in the cabin, the place of the fire.

Lessons Learned

There is now a maintenance step to inspect and tighten tighten all electrical connection every third month.

Stopping the source of the fire, if it is apparent, belongs between notify all of the crew members and get a fire extinguisher.

We should not expect anyone to learn from the safety briefing. We didn't.  We wrote it.  We give it.

Possible corrective action:

We could add a circuit breaker between the shore power source and the boat. This is still under consideration.

Had Phyl been asleep, the first indication might have been a boat full of smoke that triggered the smoke alarm.  If she had not done exactly the right thing, turn off the electricity, being awake might not have helped. 

Right time, right place, right action.  Timing is everything!

Keep a Tight Luff,
Fred

 

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