TF Members escape Manatee Fire

ssobol said:

A wisp of smoke is a lot different than setting the place on fire.

As for the reporting, yeah most incidents of failure go unreported because nothing bad happens. If a typical TV failure caused someone's house to burn down, we'd be hearing about it for sure. And consumer organizations would be all over it.

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A wisp of smoke is essentially a fire. Whether it's full of flammable dust or next to flammable material is the difference between a wisp and a house fire.

Ted

In my work, I have had to study fire safety for electronic items. Safety ratings and the designs that support them, are based on environment. A tv pronounced safe in a home, may easily become unsafe when it lives near an open window at sea. A concept called “pollution degree” ultimately figures into PCB spacings on high energy traces. Over time, insulation is degraded.
Here is a story that happened to my sister and BIL. An older clock radio came very close to burning down the entire house. It was turned off. The switch started a conduction path with the line voltage, and overheated. This small hot spot caused more plastics to get involved. It was a 5 figure sum to clean the house of soot. It went everywhere. Like inside vhs tapes, in the jacket, in a closed door cabinet, in a different room.

Ps: I will predict that AFCI will start moving aboard in the near future. The breakers have the ability to respond to sparking loads, shutting them off.

Wayne said:

Craig and Pat, my condolences on the loss of your boat. I can relate to the emotional loss, having lost the Celestial a little over a year ago during Hurricane Michael. Fortunately, within a month the insurance claim was paid, but I am reminded of it every day as I look out at our dock. It is just now getting repaired - because most of the working folks around here lost their homes and had to move elsewhere. Dock repair folks are now coming back into the area, but it has been a long wait. Our dock is now about half repaired (Christmas - so workers went home - to Texas). We hope they return....

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They will most definitely return if you didn't give them ALL the quoted amount of money. Or "let's hope".

It has been 3 months since the loss, got a call from investigator two weeks ago to tell me that the fire started in a wire chase that leads from the wheel house down (next to the tv) in the only stateroom forward, said a wire was frayed and touched another wire. Also, he said there was no fire below decks meaning the batteries were fine, engine fine, genset below the galley fine, and below the stateroom deck bow thruster fine, nothing burnt. Magnum inverter fine also. So, why did I see smoke coming up from the stateroom walls
where that chase is sealed with a below deck bulkhead? Sorry gang but this fire remains a mystery to me, only thing that may have happened is the day before was it was rough in hawks channel and the bouncing boat might have rubbed a wire the wrong way as she is used to traveling in calm icw waters, anyway a couple manatee owners have contacted me about their upcoming sale. Starting to get ancy again. Thank you all for your well wishes. Craig&pat

Well, I know that I hate it when I am rubbed the wrong way so guess you can’t blame the wire...

Hope it works out well for you.

So three months into it and the claim still isn't settled? What's the holdup? Is there something I'm missing here? Just curious, who is your insurer?

That particular chase is absolutely packed with wires on my boat. It’s true that a short in that chase could cause a melt down. Regardless, so sorry to see this boat dropped from the roster. Hope you guys can weather the viral storm and get back to enjoying the water. It’d be a shame to let that be the last of your boating experiences.

Thanks for keeping us in the loop, SF. Please keep us posted on your return to boating. I sure hope it goes smoothly.