ELECTRICAL FIRE !!!!

[captainmike]

Last week I started my big boat looked back and saw black smoke I thought I had an engine problem I walked aft and was horrified to see my M21 on fire.

Being a professional USCG inspected passenger vessel captain for many years and having had fire training I grabbed an ABC dry chemical fire extinguisher and put out the fire shut off the fuel and disconected the battery.

I have always taken for granted that the electrical system in the boat was designed properly by Ranger Tugs in 2004 but on inspection into the wireing harness and tracing out the wires it was only a matter of time before this happened there were live unfused power feeds to the lighter plug and stereo system running from the battery and main battery switch under the deck and instead of correctly using fuse blocks and buss bars all the stereo gear had inline fuses but when the feed wires shorted you can see the result in my photo album AURA .

Now begins the long process of estimates and repairs and time lost the end of july until who knows.

 

[Sam Walker]

Hi CaptainMike. That is scary. It is a good thing that you knew what to do and were calm enough to do it. So did Ranger install the wiring in question or was it installed at some point by others?

 

[captainmike]

Hi Sam

I bought AURA from the original owner who kept it 50 feet from my boats he did not do any modifications from the factory.

My first real job was as an electronics tech for a company that produced smoke detectors 30 plus years ago before all of that type of manufactureing went to the far east then I worked wiring control panels for switchgear for the Russelectric company and have restored a couple of antique cars and more than a few boats always doing the electrical work and for the last 15 years have done all the electrical work on the Boston Belle my 60 passenger tour boat with the work being inspected by the Marine Safety Office of the Coast Guard so I have some sense of what is correct in regards to an electrical system.

I have upgraded the stereo and added a chart plotter and airhorn setup but always correctly fuseing the components and when I did run a power feed up to the bow for the air compressor I fused it on both ends and made sure it was secured correctly and all connections were watertite.

I pulled a lot of melted wire out of the boat and plan to rewire the boat with new power feeds in armored marine cables being fused at the source and going to to Buss bars and fuse blocks to make sure there is no repeat disaster.

Capt. Mike

P.S Sam I hope you get your Tug and enjoy as I have many hours of boating

 

[Andrew Custis]

Hello and thanks for posting on the tugnuts. I am very surpised to hear about this. I have looked at the photos and would imagine that it would be pretty easy to automatically point the finger at the manufacturer not knowing the conditions. There are many things that can happen and yes, I certainly agree that all positive cables should be hooked into a breaker or have an inline fuse installed to them which we do at Ranger Tugs. We have been inspected for boats going into Canada and are CE approved as well on Ranger Tugs. Our wiring is up to all standards so I am not sure as to what as added either by the dealer or the previous owner before you took possesion. I am very sorry to hear of the bad news. Martini was sold to a company called Green Marine in NY which might be of some assitance to you as we no longer own the molds or patterns. If there is anything we can do to help, please let us know.

 

[Sam Walker]

Hi Mike. I would think that you should be well qualified to do the rewire. Thanks for the well wishes. It will be a while yet before I can get into a boat other than my Porta-Bote. I hope that your insurance covers the loss and that you can get your ship back together and can get out there soon.

 

[captainmike]

I have contacted Arnold Cohen of Green Marine and he is sending me the wiring diagram.

Green marine has the hull mold all the rights a spare parts inventory and an uncompleted hull for sale.

 

[captainmike]

After more investigation into the factory wiring harness the power feeds to the port side of the boat are all spliced together in wire looms that I am redoing with covered fuse boxes and for some reason the speaker wires are glassed into the deck liner which will need to be cut off and rerun as I do not trust them after the fire.

At the Miami boat show last winter I looked at the new Rangers and the wiring looked very solid and well done but if you own an older boat like mine a 2004 vintage it might not be a bad idea to trace back the accessory power feeds to avoid a problem.

There are in my opinion unneeded plugs that show corrosion that I am going to eliminate between the wiring harness and the fuse - switch panel also the connecters on the breakers and switches show corrosion which I will clean and spray with CRC anti corrosion.

 

[captainmike]

I did the first charter on the boat a couple of days ago it is not back 100% but I am making progress.

I will post pictures of the repairs soon.

 

[captainmike]

I would like to meet the person that designed the wiring in my boat from the factory and give them a kick in the rear end.

I will post a picture of the large amount of extra wire I removed today full of jumpers splices and dead ended wires they also have a serious tie wrap addiction!

My boat was wired prior to the deck liner being installed and I spent hours wiggleing tie wraps while jamming fiberglass into my arms to get to round about unneeded power feed wires.

I'm know Ranger has progressed since 2004 but I give the factory wiring job a C-

I advise that if you own an older vintage boat especially a M21 you have your wiring inspected by someone who knows what they are doing.