Fire

[harnett]

All,

It is with great sadness that I tell everyone about a fire on my boat this past week. Though not totaled the damage was extensive. As you may well imagine I am devastated. I had just completed a multi year restoration and was finally using my boat regularly. Now this. I know all the kind people on the forum understand my sadness. My purpose for writing this is in the hopes that maybe I can keep anyone else from experiencing this. As I'm told by other the source of the fire was not an uncommon one. Shore power cord connection. Though not for sure it seems the fire started on the back side of the shore power connector are very close to that. I think all the newer boats have fuses here and some are enclosed in a metal box. These things would have probably saved my boat. If you don't have the fuses get them installed asap. Check these connections for corrosion. Don't let this happen to you. I knew this was a problem and had even bought the fuses but had not installed them yet. Thankfully she is repairable and I had insurance but right now that doesn't feel like much comfort.

 

[UNIQUE_NAME]

sorry about you're boat, i guess i won't get as mad when my 2 16k cruisair units smoke my 30a slow blow fuse.
jim

 

[Mike36c]

Sorry to hear your loss but the same thing almost happened to me. In the Bahamas just before bed I went into the cockpit to get some ice only to get a whiff of that burning electrical smell. I shut everything down and investigated. The 30a airconditioning recept. was melted on the inside and the fuses were NOT blown as only one A/C was running (about 15 amps). If not caught it surely would have flamed also. I ran the genny all night and left for home the next AM.

The problem is that these old receptacles (1977) are just plain worn out and dangerous. I replaced the two 30a receptacles with a single 50a 220 and love it. I can run everything and the cord never gets warm because the panels are still limited to 30a. If you do this be sure to replace the wire from the recept. leading to the panels with 6ga to be safe. It's more $$ to fix it this way but well worth it IMHO plus I sleep better.

 

[Pascal]

sorry to hear about your fire !

yes, these type of fires are very common... modern boats have breakers near the inlet, they are required by ABYC standards i think when the panel is more than 6 ft from the point of entry.

I often feel the plug to make sure it's not getting hot...

how extensive is the damage ?

 

[harnett]

It's pretty bad. Half of the cockpit deck, tackle center, coaming on one side all gone. A little up the outside of the house. No interior damage to speak of. Damaged some wiring in the engine room. Fire burned a small hole in the engine room to lazerette bulkhead. Everything smoked up in the engine room. Lot's of cleanup and fiberglass repair. Whole boat will have to be repainted. I guess I was lucky in the sense that I believe 30 more mins and the boat would have been gone. A fisherman close to my dock saw the smoke and called the fire department. They responded very quickly.

 

[Gale Force]

How sad for you. We almost had your situation. While in the Bahamas a couple of weeks ago, the power went off. When we opened the door to the cockpit, smoke was coming out of the shore power connection. We have an 1987 36C. Hatteras fuses bote the hot and neutral wires on their shore power. What happened, the neutral fuse holder became corroded causing arcing. The fuse may have blown but the arcing continued melting the fuse into several pieces. The arcing stopped once the gap burned large enough to stop jumping. Black smoke and a horrible electrical burning smell was present. The damage in this case was minor due to the electrical being enclosed in a metal box. The lesson is to inspect the fuse holders for corrosion and replace them if they don't look really good. The holders are expensive, but cheap compared to the damage a corroded one can cause. There was no prewarning of this condition.

 

[SeaEric]

Same has happened to me, but no fire. My Air Cond inlet plug became welded to the boat. The wire behind it was melted for 3 to 4 feet. Scary. I have since had the entire business replaced and re-wired to 50 amp instead of 30, with a new panel and breakers. Before the re-work, mine was a fire waiting to ignite.

Sorry to hear of your mishap. It sure sounds as if it could have been worse.

 

[Boatsb]

Although sad as it is no one was hurt and the boat will be repaired. It sounds like no one was aboard.

My surveyor had me add the breaker panels behind the shore cords when I first tried to get the boat insured. When I added the genny I did the same 4 foot away from the genny so there is no issues with the breakers. I also replaced the wiring for both 30A feeds and one of the bulkhead connectors. Even with that I leave very little on when I leave to minimize the load.....

 

[Jaxfishgyd]

It's amazing how many "close calls" every boater has had/will have.

There is a 60+ ft sportfisherman at Huckins Boat Yard that sunk at it's slip because the owner and/or capt. forgot to turn the dock hose off that was connected to the boat and one of the inside water hoses burst and put more water in than the bilge pumps could pump out and it sunk. I have a $10 water timer on my hose that I got at Home Depot that I set at 300 gals connected at the dock faucet.

All I have to do is reset it when I walk by it every few days. Plus I have 7 bilge pumps unlike the 2 the sportfisherman had.

I've had the main circuit breaker in the cockpit melt (it IS inside a metal electric box). The Admiral smelt burning rubber and woke me up, one of the nice things (?) of being full time liveaboards is, we were here...

I now also have a smoke detector above the two circuit breakers in the cockpit as an added safety feature. We have many full time liveaboards at our marina so hopefully the noise will get someone's attention should it go off and we were not home.

 

[DCMY #92]

When I bought our 1965 Hat 25 years ago one of the first things I did was replace the shore power inlet plugs, wiring and selector switches. I remove the shore power inlet connectors and tighten the connection screw every couple of years. I also remove the rubber boots and tighten the screws on my shore power cords every couple of years as well.

More importantly however, I have always coated all 120V, 12V and hull bonding connections with conductive anti corrosion grease. The only hot/melted connections I have had were sealed factory plugs on new power cords or shoreside recepticals that did not have the anti corrosion grease.

The product I use is:
Sanchem, Inc.
1600 S. Canal Street
Chicago, IL 60616
Tel: 1-800-621-1603
Out of State: 1-312-733-6111
Fax: 1-312-733-7432
Product Name: NO-OX-ID "A-Special"
Source: Direct from Manufacturer

A 4 ounce jar of this will last you a lifetime and costs about $5. Sanchem has a minimum order policy that requires an order of 25 4 oz. jars for about $75. I just bought a case and have many left. If anyone wants one, just email me.

 

[Boatsb]

I'm interested. where are you located? What part of florida?

 

[Angela]

Harnett,

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. I can only imagine how that might feel - very painful, I'm sure. I'm not sure how I'd handle such a traumatic experience if my boat were to ever suffer such.

Reading everyone's stories makes me realize how lucky I was with my prior boat. I arrived at the boat to go for a boat ride, and I couldn't get the shore power plug out. It smelled funny too. After a bit of a poking around, I realized it had melted into the side of the boat. Couldn't let that spoil the weekend, so I cut the whole thing off and left the yellow pig tail sticking out of the side of the boat, figured I'd deal with it Sunday when I got back, which I did. I had to replace the entire outlet, and then Ed replaced the wires running from the outlet back to the panel after I melted yet a second shorepower cord shortly thereafter.

It appears a lot of us have had this close call.

 

[DCMY #92]

Boatsb
I am in Palmetto - send me an email - I can't seem to open your profile.

 

[StratPlan61]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but it appears numerous Hatteras owners have had similar experiences with shorepower receptacles/wiring with either serious or near-serious outcomes. Has Hatteras ever published any advisory technical bulletins or attempted to contact owners regarding these potential dangers? These examples cited appear to suggest a wiring issue - not just a random overload or shore source 'root cause'.
I wouldn't think it would be too tough to track present owners, through this forum and USCG records. I understand Hatteras has gone through various corporate ownership over the years - but, dah - doesn't it seem logical they would want to alert owners to this potential hazard.
Maybe I missed a key aspect of this???

 

[Boatsb]

It is not only hatteras'. All boats are subject to the issues with the bad connections on power cords. I replaced most every main wire in the 100 volt circuit in the past year as they were showing signs of age. I replaced the selector switch on the main and will probably do so on the AC panel in a week or two. Just to be safe.

FYI I check the switches and wiring for heat and have noticed after changing some items the heat is lower. It's maintenance pure and simple for any boat.

 

[Trojan]

This is not just a Hatteras problem. All boats can have this happen. There are many stories on this subject. I to had this happen to me last year. I was cautioned about this from another boater a few years ago. A couple left there boat, a Sea Ray to go swimming and returned to find it burnt to the water line. My connector was burnt on the back and the wires were burnt back about 6 inches. Lucky I had informed everyone on the boat not to place anything against this connector. There inside a storage locker on each side the boat. Had there been something against it, there would have been lots of damage. I check these connections twice a summer. The previous owner didn't and the constant pulling on the connector will loosen the wires. It is important that you use the gripping ring on the cord every time you connect to your boat. It can happen at any connection. If the load is heavy and the connection is loose. Changing to a larger connection will not prevent this . Checking it will.
I'm sorry for your loss. just happy you weren't sleeping when it happened. BILL

 

[Brian Degulis]

It's not a Hatteras problem it's the nature of the beast. You have a cord that is only as big as it has to be to carry the load then you connect and disconect hundreds or thousands of times. Then you add salt water movement as the boat moves in it's slip and chronically low voltage from marinas that are sub standard. You now have a system that is marginal at best and must be maintained almost perfectly.

At my shop we have 50A cords to power welding machines a lot of machines and the same problems exist they require constant maintenance and replacement.

I'm sorry to hear about your damage I'm sure that this is the worst time for you and when the repairs begin you should start feeling better. And if things go true to form you will have a better boat when it's all said and done. Thank you for posting this I'm sure it will cause everyone on this forum to double check there power conections.

I work in Palmetto so if there is anything I can do to help you just let me know.

Brian

 

[egaito]

It's amazing how many "close calls" every boater has had/will have.

There is a 60+ ft sportfisherman at Huckins Boat Yard that sunk at it's slip because the owner and/or capt. forgot to turn the dock hose off that was connected to the boat and one of the inside water hoses burst and put more water in than the bilge pumps could pump out and it sunk. I have a $10 water timer on my hose that I got at Home Depot that I set at 300 gals connected at the dock faucet.

I've heard story after story like this, yet I've yet to see shore water overpower a single pump. When I'm washing mine out, I frequently leave it running down there for an hour or so, flushing everything out.

Now if one pump failed, that poor, underequipped Huckins (two bilge pumps in a 60'er? Sounds like a houseboat), was handicapped, but with all of the pumps on Misty and Sanctuary, unless the batteries go dead, I can't see a hose sinking either one of them. Last trip down, we had a hose pop off on Sanctuary, and again, it never got past the 1st pump, which was cycling every 30 seconds or so, keeping up just fine.

No, that doesn't mean I leave them on when I'm away.....I even bought Ang one of those water timers years ago, for her first cruiser, but it seems odd to me that so many seem to go down this way.

 

[harnett]

Thanks to everyone for their kind words. I had no doubt that I'd get that from a first class group of people like this. I sincerely hope that my hard lesson will help someone else avoid this type of situation. Thanks again to everyone.

Barry Barbour

 

[the kuz]

Barry, so sorry to read about your fire. Thanks for the heads up - I'll be checking my connections much more carefully from now on. Good luck on the repairs. I'm sure everything will be better than ever when done.

Best Regards, Bob K