Whilst at work this morning I received a surprise call from the marina office at Kings Bromley to say that there was an alarm going off on Blue Moon. Strange I thought... we don't have an alarm !!
Luckily I was not too far away - I was actually having a coffee in a cafe about 20 minutes drive away - so off we go with that worried feeling getting stronger and stronger. I had left Blue Moon on Sunday evening hooked up to the electrics - could it be the alarm on the Victron inverter / charger signalling that it was overheating - now that could be expensive was the thought. By the time I arrived, would the boat be on fire?? How things get twisted in your head the more you think about them. As we approached the marina, scanning the sky for signs of smoke, I was relieved that there was none to be seen. Pulling up close to the boat there was a lady looking questioningly at Blue Moon. 'Is there an alarm going off?' I asked. 'Yes' she replied...'It's been going for a couple of days now'. It was actually quite loud and could clearly be heard as I approached the mooring. Three sharp bleeps, a slight pause and then three more. On entering Blue Moon, it was found to be the carbon monoxide alarm that was going off. Even stranger as everything was off, and the gas isolated in the front gas locker. On checking the alarm itself, it says that it has a 5 year life and should have been replaced in Feb 2012, so I can only think that the alarm is defective. For now the batteries have been removed and the problem will have to wait for the weekend - an excuse (as if we need one) to pop down to the marina at the weekend !!
Not that it helps much but we did have that alarm go off once when we were on the boat about 2.00am and, in a groggy state, it seemed to take ages to find out how to switch it off. We had no idea what triggered it and funnily enough we had the alam go off on Hoddy a couple of weeks ago for no apparent reason.
ReplyDeleteI think it was simply down to the alarm being expired David to be honest. I put the batteries back in it again at the weekend and it went off straight away. All sorted now though with a posh new digital one !!!
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