On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 10:06:10PM -0400, Kris Coward wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 09:42:03PM -0400, Ben Okopnik wrote:
> > Good grief. No second battery; not even a generator on board - and these
> > people go 200 miles out to sea. Pays to remember this kind of stuff when
> > you have a rapidly approaching questionable situation with another boat.
> > Remember, folks - you can't rely on the other guy to do the right
> > thing... he may not have any idea what that is!
>
> Come now, the lack of a live battery to start with should not
> necessarily be taken as an indication of only one battery (says the guy
> who only recently diagnosed a short in his isolator which allows the
> cranking battery to discharge into the house battery).
Well, no. But the issue here isn't just the dead battery - it's the lack
of a reliable power system on a boat 200 miles out to sea. We sailors
often take our engines somewhat for granted because we have a second (I
wanted to write "alternate", but that misses the point I want to make)
propulsion system; it lets us attach less importance to the reliability
of those mechanical beasts. Those fishermen don't have that second
systsm - that stand-alone fallback - which means that their engines are
critically, vitally important. That includes a reliable, well-tested
starting system. If our engines die in the open ocean, we sigh in
annoyance and raise a sail. If their engine dies, they just might follow
it in short order: a power boat can be *very* unstable in heavy seas
without power. Pretty similar to flying a jet, that.
I strongly suspect that the guy who recently diagnosed that isolator
short wasn't making any 200 mile ocean trips with a questionable battery
system... in fact, I don't believe he'd put to sea at all unless he had
tested his major systems pretty thoroughly. Just an impression I've
formed. :)
Ben
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