Fire on board / my Fiesta Vee 242 hardly burned out by an electrical problem at the alternator

FJ96

On our third day of our autumn boating tour to croatia last year we were in a bit heavy sea when the engine suddenly stopped with a beep tone. My son told me that there's fume coming our of the engine hatch. I thought the engine was maybe overloaded becuase we were running at around 4000 rpm on the boat was fully loaded for our two weeks vacation.

When I opened the hatch, the alternator was burning. I managed to extinguish the fire within the next minute.
Wind was strong and we were just 100meters in front of the rocks. I was lucky that I could drop my new anchor with 50m of chain and the boat stopped at approx 24m depth. We were towed to our harbour later on.

When I inspected the damage, I saw that the plus cable from the alternator to the battery was melted and had contact to the engine block, which created a strong shortage. The cable was burned on the fist 10cm on the alternator side and as well on the first 10 cm on the startor.

For me it looks like the alternator was not the problem. It looked like the plastic on the back side was burned by the fire from the organge wire.

I tought the route cause of this was the shortage. Now I'm going to replace the original design by a different one, which is using an isolator between alternator and the two batteries. I will not go the "old" way through the startor to charge the batteries anymore.

But still I'm thinking if a short was the real route cause.

Meanwhile I have seen that the original organge plus cable between alternator and startor has been cutted by one of the previous owners. They put a piece of red cable in between. So maybe they faced a comparable problem before. I don't expect that the last owner knows that or would tell me.

So I wonder if you guys have an idea or if you had heared about similar problems.

Thanks in advance
Frank

aero3113

WoW, your very lucky! On my 2001 242 that I owned the orange wire was cut also and not used. Just the other day on my 2008 330 I found this on my starboard side alternator, and the wire did look slightly melted. I feel that I definitely dodged a bullet and prevented something from happening.

davidbrooks

This could of ended so badly. Your quick thinking and preparedness saved yourself and your family.

FJ96

Could be my alternator cable was in the same condition, aero!

...

We called the coast guard. When they recocnized that the fire doesn't burn anymore, the boat is no more drifting and nobody is injured, they povided us to call a company to pull the boat.

We learned a lot this day. Beeing back at the peer in the evening, we put a little tunny we catched on our BBQ and we were very happy that we survived it. The good thing is, that my 13 years old son now exactly knows what to do in case of fire.

On the next day we rented a 37feed sailboat at the charter base where I am booking since 6 years and we had a good time fishing in the adriatic sea for nealy two weeks.

But back to the problem:

At aero's 242 the orange cable was also cuttet. Did anybody else see that at this Rinker?

aero3113

@FJ96 , I have heard of other boats having the orange wire cut also.

FJ96

Thanks aero!

reneechris14

The orange wire to the alternator should be cut if you go with an isolator. The orange wire some how completes the circuit (? Solenoid on the starter ?). I think you could be right that the short was the root of the problem. Heave gauge wire chafing to the block.

FJ96

Thanks reneechris14, but there was no isolator installed.

But I now will install one, to get rid of this cable from the alternator to the startor.