Repairs in North Palm Beach

We’ve been in North Palm Beach now for over 2 weeks, time flies!

To start where I left off in our last blog post… Jim came to Nassau three days after the fire and we arrived back in Florida on a Thursday morning. It was great to see him again and have him on board. The trip was uneventful and calm and took a little over 24 hours. It was a strange feeling to be heading “home”. We’ve spent so much time in south Florida over the years, especially the 7 months in Stuart, that it’s beginning to feel like a second home.

This blog entry is going to be exclusively about the boat and the engine room fire. I know a lot of people are interested in that and not our day to day life. I’ll resume my usual blogging in the next entry, coming soon!

Martin here. We've been asked several questions about the fire and how our boat is equipped that I’ll address here.

What caused the fire?

The fire was caused by a wiring issue at the starter motor that caused the wiring harness to catch fire. This is why the fire seemed so extensive when viewed from the ER door – there were flames encircling the engine. The smoke and flame was caused by wire sheaths and insulation burning. It was a surprising amount of smoke/flame to be coming from this alone. Luckily, the fire did not burn long or hot enough to catch anything else on fire.

Has it been repaired, what did this involve?

The engine has been repaired and tested and it’s working great. The guys from Nordhavn SE did a great job. The starter, alternator and wiring harness were replaced. Touchups were made to the engine paint and gelcoat on the engine mount.

Do you have a Seafire system? Why didn't the Seafire system activate?

Yes we do have Seafire. These systems rely on heat to activate. Despite all the smoke, there really wasn't much heat given off. Certainly not enough to raise the temperature up to the 175 degrees F required. This system can also be manually activated. We would have done this had we not been able to put the fire out with an extinguisher. This is a last resort as it also shuts down the main, leaving the boat without any form of propulsion.

What about a smoke alarm?

We do have one in the engine room. It's attached to our Maretron system and when it goes off everyone knows! We were getting so many false positives that I disabled it. I think the causes of the false positives have been resolved (leaky exhaust gasket, shedding exhaust blanket, overheated engine room) and it’s time to get it back on line.

We also have a smoke alarm in the salon (we have them in all rooms on the boat). The smoke was moving quickly through the salon (all windows, doors and hatches were open) and the smoke did not reach the alarm which is on the port side of the room. After seeing how the smoke moved through the boat, we’re installing another alarm above the stairs to the utility room/ER this week. 

Was there smoke damage?

None at all!  The smoke moved quickly through the salon and within a day there was no lingering smell. There’s nothing in the engine room to hold the smell (no soft goods) so that is back to normal as well.

Steph here again. There have been some important observations and lessons learned from our experience. We thought we'd share them with hopes that they could be useful for other boaters... 

• It was easier to grab a fire extinguisher from elsewhere on the boat rather than the one in the ER because it was so smoky in the ER. We used the extinguisher from the pilot house. We have several on board now and we’re adding another one to the utility room on the other side of the ER door.
• Know how to use a fire extinguisher. Even though it's "easy", you don’t want to be trying this for the first time when dealing with an actual fire – I've never used one and now I have a half used one to practiced with.
• We have smoke detectors in every room on the boat and are now adding another. Placement is critical as well as working out the kinks with "false alarms". We'll be testing the ER alarm on our way north. We don't want a "cry wolf" situation in the future.
• Having a window in the ER door is the best thing ever.
• We're getting at least one smoke/fire hood. It was amazing how much smoke filled the ER so quickly.

So that's the scoop. We're all repaired and no worse for wear. We have a few other maintenance issues we're attending to and we'll be heading to Charleston in early July.