I Smell Toast

We went by Star Marine Thursday to get a run through of the new set up. We'd hoped the boat might be done but they'd discovered one of our starting batteries was bad as they were putting everything together at the end, and they'd had to order a new one. Ian said they'd put the battery in Friday morning but we told him we wouldn't be there to get the boat until late in the day so no rush.

When we arrived Friday around 4:30, I went to get the key from Ian while Matt went to get our outboard which we were having serviced while we were there. The folks at Star Marine said Ian was on our boat. Hmmm...

I walked down and found Ian in the engine room with the installer in the saloon screwing the cover back on the engine gauge panel. They were obviously in the middle of something! The installer said they'd found a bad switch as they were doing their final tests so they were swapping it out.

I went to let Matt know the status and he came back down with me. That's when we got the full run down on the smoke and what not. They'd fired up the motors to make sure everything worked and smoke started coming out of the starboard engine gauge panel! They took the panel down and found three wires had melted together. Of course in that situation your first thought is "what did I do to cause THIS??" but it was pure coincidence, there were existing crossed wires that happened to melt at that moment. Glad it happened to them and not us!

So they got everything done and closed up the engine room and were saying their goodbyes when one of us said we should fire up the motors to make sure everything was ok now. Starboard no problem. Port- nothing. They quickly started diagnosing and had it fixed in a few minutes, turned out when they tightened the new switch down it was flexing the cover and making a bad connection. A few spacers and we were on our way.

We were only going a short distance up the estuary and we were working our way through several groups of high school crew teams out practicing. We'd just dodged between two sets of two sculls when Matt turned to me and said "I smell toast, would you go check?". (we were on the flybridge). I went below and first checked the engine gauge panels. No smoke, no smell. Good. I didn't really smell anything down there (the doors were open so there was good ventilation) but I thought I should check the engine room. I guess I've seen too many movies because I was worried if something was going on down there that when I opened the hatch and added air a fire could flare up. We have a fire suppression system so I decided not to be so paranoid and open the dang hatch. Nothing. Whew.

I went back up top and reported in. Matt said the smell was gone and we must have passed someone barbecuing. Better safe than sorry I guess.

We tried out the inverter and it is pretty cool how it automatically takes over when the shore power is turned off. It is only hooked to the circuits for the outlets so we don't overload it with the range or hot water heater. We'd have to run the generator to use those, which is fine as we'll need to run it some for charging anyway. Obviously this set up is for when we are away from the dock.

The only thing is two of our three GFCI outlets buzz with the inverter on. A quick google search revealed this is a common problem and we need to replace them with another brand of GFCI that the inverter manufacture has tested and certified to work with the inverter.

All in all we are very happy with the work that Ian and his team at Star Marine did on the boat. They came in very close to budget and time as well, which never happens with marine projects. Ian was great to work with and his adorable long haired dachshund, Lumpy, was a sweetheart and loves to get petted. We will definitely go back to Star Marine when we need more electrical work or want to upgrade our electronics.

I'll take photos and post them soon!