Feeling overloaded?

[thoward]

Happened to our dockmate after 1 day of ownership. Needless to say he has been asked to leave.

 

[egaito]

"Honey, how many times do I have to tell you, when all the air conditioners are running, and there's a pizza in the oven, with the washer and dryer are both going, DON'T TURN ON YOUR HAIR DRYER!"

That's a 50 and a 30, no?

 

[thoward]

Yes that WAS a 30 & 50 for an 80'+ yacht

 

[Jaxfishgyd]

Lets see. a 30 and a 50 outlet. FOR WHAT SIZE BOAT !!

Oh, add the amps and your get the size of the boat....

Guess it's that new math stuff...

 

[jim rosenthal]

Am I missing something? Mine always looked like that, until I just sprayed them black with Rustoleum, so it wouldn't show....LOL

 

[Boatsb]

I would think they would want them to stay and get them 2 x 50 amp services at a nice cost per KW.

 

[spartonboat1]

Sorry, but I don't get the issue. Would not the shoreside breakers in the "doghouse" trip, if they were overloaded. I have tried every which way and a 30amp power cable cannot be used for or adapted with adapters for use in a 50amp application. Only a Reverse Y adapter will marry-up two 30's and even then you need both legs of the 110v, i.e. you usually need to "steal" your adjacent dockmates 30amp outlet to get the other leg and they then use yours.

So why did the cables fry? You can snicker, if I am slow on this...

 

[thoward]

The run to the house connection had to be 50'. I think he just had the cords overloaded, they looked cheap and small. That is a lot of boat to run on 80A. Like egato said, he must have been running a massive load.

 

[SeaEric]

The electric cable on my boat looked just like that. Except it was in the run from the inlet to the panel! When I realized that the shore cord was welded into the inlet, I called an electrician. $14,000. and a new panel later, all is well and up to date. BTW, the estimate for the job was $3500 to $5000. The project ran a little over with all of the "while your in there's".

 

[Trojan]

That happens when there is a BAD connection right there. Not an overload. A 30 amp cable will handle more than 30 amps easy. The breaker will trip at 32 amps. BUT a bad connection will just get hotter and hotter and hotter until you get what you see. You guys must check your shore connections inside and out. I had the same thing happen last year. But only on the inside where the house wires connect to the boat plug. I had checked the screws on the inside of the plugs just weeks before the fire. On the day it happened it was 9:00 in the morning. The only thing running was the frig, ice maker and the coffee pot. So it was not over loaded. I was going to start breakfast when the power went off. I went to the shore plug to check the breaker to find it was OK. I then went back aboard to try to figure out what happened to my power. As I entered the salon I smelled smoke, not good. But from where was it coming. Unknowing at the time it was wicking down through the inner hull. The next thing I thought was to check inside the panel. I was warned about this by someone else. Nothing there. It could not be the plug I had just checked it 2 weeks before. I went to the storage locker on the back deck where the power entered the boat. When I opened it. I was met by a big cloud of smoke. Scary. I had the admiral just moments before turn off the dock breakers. The fire had smothered its self. I suspect because of the small area. Two of the wires were completely burnt off. Luckily I had instructed everyone in the family to not store anything against these plugs. I found out later that the previous owner did not check the screws and they were burnt already when I checked them. They would not turn because they were already welded and I thought they were tight because I could not turn them. I was real lucky. Two years ago a boat in Port Clinton O. burnt to the water from the same thing. So check your plugs inside and out. Be safe. If I were to guess, I would blame it on the dock pedestal. Not the plug. The stabs don't become loose. The stab sockets spread making for a loose connection. You can only draw what the breakers will let you. You can't draw 50 amps through a 30 amp breaker.

BILL

 

[J's Dream]

Take a look at the pic again...

On the 50A plug, it looks like there is a price you'd likely see at a marine flea market, or surplus store. Does it say $5.00?

I guess this is what happens when you don't spend $90 on a new end!

 

[Pascal]

i think you guys are quick to judge. if the dockside breaker works, you can't pull more than 30amp from a 30amp breaker which seems to be the culprit here.

but it is a good idea to inspect the plugs on a regular basis, looking for corrosion or discoloration, as wet as feeling the plugs under load for heat.

 

[thoward]

To be honest I think the 50A cord is a 30A. It is much smaller than my 50A cord. The 30A cord was small too. My guess was the 30A had too small a cord with too long a run and too much draw. Heck I am just glad they got it before it got out of control. If you look in the background my Whaler is right there. I actually feel bad for the guy as this happened on his 1st day of ownership. I am sure he bought it that way.....

 

[Trojan]

You can't judge the cable size by its outside cover. Only heat from a poor connection can cause this. Even if the breaker was a 50 amp breaker with a 30 amp cord it still was a bad connection. I doubt the breakers were wrong. I would bet the female receptacle in the tower was warn out and needed replacing. Unless the cable end had been bad and had been replaced incorrectly. It also could be from broken strands at the plug from being jerked on from an improper boat tie up. Only a bad connection will cause heat........

BILL

 

[Pascal]

somethign that just occured to me..

this boat was connected with both a 30amp and 50 amp cords, right ?

what happens if the neutral connector on the 220/50 cord gets doesn't connect ? you suddenly have 130amp neutral/return going thru a 30amp cord and outlet...

ideally, neutral circuits should be separated but in some cases they're not. I don't know about new boats but i know that when i installed my inverter i had to manually ID and split all the neutrals that were originally on the same neutral bus.

does it make sense ? i don't think the 220/50 breaker will pop on loss of neutral.

 

[Trojan]

Neutral is neutral It would do nothing.

BILL

 

[TedZ]

Been watching this for awhile.

One thing for sure is the load in the boat did not cause this or the breaker would have tripped. So something got hot and didn't draw enough to trip the 200, 300 or 400 amp NON-GROUND FAULT breaker supplying the dock.

It is hard to say what burned first, but the only thing that makes sense to me is a bad connection in the box that caused thermal runaway once the normal boat load was connected. Another words the box burned the cord in my theory.

My $.02

Ted