Chapter 119: I Smell Smoke

Not gonna lie. It’s been hard to write this post. The event actually happened a few weeks ago but it freaked us out so badly we needed time to process. The good news? I think we’re in a good place now. And we learned stuff. More stuff. Again.

The saga started when Kim smelled a burning odor in the cabin while we were underway. At first, I did not, but then it happened again the next time we ran the engine and I did detect a faint odor of burning/smoke. But we couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. There was no smell in the engine compartment, which is where any burning would (I thought) have been located. So, mistake one: we ignored it. Then, the propane/CO detector in our cabin randomly alarmed. I thought it was a defective alarm, so I disconnected it. But the alarm went off again, which I then traced actually to the smoke alarm in our cabin (they’re right next to each other). I reconnected the first alarm and swapped out the smoke detector. Problem solved! Except not. It continued to intermittently make a few random beeps. But there was no smoke and no odor. This was happening when we were at anchor and the middle of the night while the engine was not running. We only smelled the odor while underway and only intermittently. Then it seemed to go away. These two events did not seem related so I ignored it. Mistake one made again!

Then, one day we were running the engine to charge our batteries and Kim called to me. She was organizing one the drawers in our cabin.

Kim: “Bob, can you come here a minute?”

Me: “Sure. What’s up?”

Kim: “Why is there smoke in this drawer?”

Me: ………….. “WHAAAT???!!!”

I looked and, sure enough, there were faint wisps of smoke in the drawer.

At that point, I did what any competent, experienced sailor would do. I freaked out. I mean, it was more like freaking out in the inside, but still. On the outside, we swung into action. Engine off. Electrical systems off. TURN EVERYTHING OFF!!

That’s when I did what I should have done the first time Kim smelled smoke: I turned the boat inside out until we found the cause. We emptied every drawer and cabinet. I went outside and emptied the lazarette. Nothing. Finally, I took our berth apart and checked underneath. Bingo! And it was scary. Under our berth live three things all within inches of each other: our lithium battery bank, the wiring and fuses that supply/draw power from the battery bank, and….a fuel tank. I saw a mess. One of the fuse blocks was completely melted as was some of the insulation on the wiring. At that point, I had a few thoughts. First, there were thoughts of a horrible death by fire. Second, there were thoughts that we were screwed because we have no power now. Third, there were more thoughts of a horrible death by fire. Fourth, there were thoughts of abandoning ship and going to live in a house like normal people. Then I got ahold of myself. I did what we’ve done every time we’ve screwed up out here: we called Drew, our project manager back in Brunswick, Georgia. Drew led us through the situation and helped us figure out the cause of the problem and a temporary solution. Because that’s what he does. He’s amazing, really. We sent him a present.

It turns out that the fuse block that melted was for the alternators that charge the batteries. That’s why we only smelled smoke when the engine was running. And why did it melt? Because…I messed up-probably. A few weeks prior, when we were chasing down the cause of the stray current in our bilge, we disconnected everything until the current went away, then reconnected stuff. And when I reconnected the alternator cables, I must not have snugged them down tightly enough. When electrical current passes through loose connections, there is increased resistance, which leads to heat generation. In this case, LOTS of heat. Enough heat to melt the fuse block. But because there was no increase in current, the fuse never blew. Everything around it just melted. Happily, these events don’t get hot enough to catch fire-usually. Why did the smoke alarm sound intermittently even when the engine wasn’t running and in the middle of the night? My theory is that the smoke was trapped beneath our bunk and leaked out very gradually, sometimes triggering the alarm for a second or two.

So, we removed all the melted components. Fortunately, I had a spare fuse and a spare cable. We fashioned a temporary fuse box out of Tupperware and reconnected everything-tightly – think MacGyver! We tested it out and everything worked fine. I have a laser heat gun and you better believe Kim and I were checking those temperatures every five minutes. We were very fortunate that this happened where it did. Our next stop was Martinique, which has every boat service one could need. We were able to source replacement parts easily and now we are all shipshape once again.

What did we (I) learn?

• Electrical connections on a boat need to be tight. Really tight.
• Boats are constantly moving, which means things that were tight once may not be tight now.
• Drew is a godsend (I mean, we knew that already, but…).
• Most importantly, when something seems “off” on a boat, do NOT ignore it. Dig, dig, dig until you find out the reason. We let a couple of weeks of faint smoke smells and intermittent alarm beeps go by before we dug in and figured it out.
• We’re resilient. We’re still here. Still learning.

And after 5 fantastic weeks in Martinique, we’re off today for the Grenadines!