FIRE!

[burner]

A couple posts have pointed out my early Christmas morning phone call from my marina.  My 1988 C34 - Suzie-Q - caught fire sometime during the night of Christmas Eve.  The interior is in pretty sad shape, the fire obviously came from the electrical panel in the cabin.  Flames were apparent for a time, not sure why it extinguished itself, just thankful that it did.  Anything and everything plastic or vinyl is melted, and a lot of the teak is charred.  The hull and deck are undamaged, will be awaiting Boat U.S. and the surveyor to see what the future holds for her.  We're very hopeful that she isn't a total loss, and my wife and I have already decided that if we get to rebuild her, we're going to rename her "Phoenix".  I will keep everyone informed of everything that I learn.  She was plugged into shore power, and had a small space heater on in the cabin - set at 40 degrees.  I know, stupid move.  Now I'm paying the price.  I'm somewhat confused about the failure of both the shoreside 30 amp breaker and the one year old 30 amp breaker in the boat.  Strange things happen, and I know about electricity, I've made my living dealing with it for over 30 years.  I think that's where we usually fail - in those things we're most familiar with.  Anyway, I'll keep everyone posted.

[burner]

Update.  I met the marine surveyor at the boat on Monday.  Thorough inspection didn't really reveal anything other than "it wasn't intentionally set, and there is really no smoking gun as to what caused the fire".  I heard from my surveyor and adjuster both today, and I've been given free reign to remove anything from the interior of the boat that I want to keep.  There isn't much of anything on board that isn't ruined at this point, but it'll help me inventory what I had - if I can recognize anything.  The only thing obvious is that it was an electrical fire, there were some pretty hot flames from the electrical panel.  It actually caught the inside of the roof deck on fire and that burned for a while itself.  Finally smothered itself out, but it almost broke through both the plexiglass window above the electrical panel and the overhead hatch.  That hatch is warped in several different directions - it's amazing that it didn't get sufficient oxygen there to really get out of hand.  New Year's day, we're going to go over and unload the boat.  I'll conduct my own "fire investigation", for what good it'll do.  I'll let you know what I find or don't find.

[burner]

By the way, it seems pretty sure that it's a total loss.

[Gene Regan]

Steve,
  Sorry to read about your loss,hopefully you,ll reach a positive end soon and be sailing again come spring.
  Please keep us posted as to your findings and try to have a Happy New Year
Good Luck
Gene Regan

gene regan

[burner]

Well, the club had our New Year's party, our Racing Fleet Captain and I were talking about my fire that night.  I knew he was a fireman, but didn't know he was a fire investigator.  He asked if he could go look - he was really interested in learning what happened.  New Year's morning, we donned our disposable coveralls, latex gloves and boarded Suzie-Q.  He spent quite a bit of time looking over the electrical panel, following the trail to the origin.  Finally he said, "I found where it started!".  Behind the electrical panel he pointed out a block of wood mounted to the hull with a small piece of metal that remained stuck to it.  On that piece of metal were three wires literally welded to it.  He then pointed out the melted metal that had dripped down onto the hull, which was very near where the large harness comes up to the electrical panel.  For a while, I couldn't figure out what the block of wood was - then it came to me.  It was one of the red lights behind the electrical panel that backlights it.  It appears that it was factory wiring - we were getting real ready to get off the boat by now - but the wiring must have been routed over the top of that light.  The theory is that the insulation had been chafing for all these years until it finally grounded against the bulb's base, welding all these wires together.  The flash that occured along with the melted metal falling into the harness began the process.  Get behind your panels, take a look at this and correct if you've got the same situation.  Something I've learned about an electrical fire - the corrosives that are in the smoke attacks every piece of metal instantly.  The sink is already mostly rusted - all brass and stainless steel is already pitted and turning green.  My surveyor said that every single piece of metal inside the interior would have to be replaced if it was rebuilt.  Again, take a look behind your panels - I don't know what years will be similiar, mine is a 1988 model.  Funny, I replaced the engine wiring last summer as reccommended by this board.  When my surveyor said that the engine wiring looked to be brand new, I said, "It is, I replaced it this summer because of a danger of fire."  To which he replied, "isn't that ironic".  Anyway, thanks everyone for the kind words, I'll make a final posting with the results of the insurance's decision.  At this point, I think it's pretty well wrapped up, but you never know.  By the way, so far - I am thoroughly impressed with Boat U.S.  They've called me almost daily informing me of the process.  I've never been treated that way by an insurance company.  And by the way, I'm tenatively in the market for a late model Catalina 36 MK II if anyone knows of a bargain in the southeastern part of the US!

Followup is posted here:  http://c34.org/bbs/index.php?topic=3998.0#lastPost