Day 422 Fire!!

We left Meyer's Chuck at 0500 right on time for Foggy Bay.  About a half hour later I looked at the voltage readout on our Garmin chart plotter and it showed 12.9 volts.  Now normally it reads 14.1 this early in the trip as it is recharging the previous nights amp hour usage to bring the battery back up to a full load of amp hours.  I headed down below to see if I had set the battery switches to the wrong location for the charger.  As I opened the cabin door, a whiff of burning greeted me.  I rushed below and opened the engine room doors only to be greeted by a compartment full of smoke.  We had a fire in the engine room!!  I yelled up to Tracy to shut her down and pulled off the doors as we came to a halt, dead in the water.  I threw open the top hatch and the port lights to get as much fresh air in as possible.  So far, all I saw was smoke,  no flames.  OK, that good, I guess.  It smelled bad but at least there was no flames.  As the smoke cleared, I started hunting to see what had gone wrong.  I check the wires--all in good condition.  I pulled out the oil dip stick to check the engine--just fine.  The transmission--fine.  I checked the port alternator(charges the starter batteries)-- looked fine as did the starboard alternator(charges the house batteries).  Everything looked fine.  I started up the engine(sigh of relief that it would start) and went at it again checking everything in the compartment.  I pulled out my voltmeter and checked the port alternator--14.15 volts--just fine.  The starboard alternator--12.8--only what the battery currently had in it.  It had burned up and failed in a big cloud of smoke.  The fan belt was still running just fine, but the guts of it were toast.  We'd had it rebuilt last year during the refit.  I guess it couldn't take the work we were expecting of it.

OK, we could move under power.  We put out some sail to assist and took off for Ketchikan.  I left the engine room doors off so I could monitor the situation in case it got bad again.  Tracy suggested that I lower the DuoGen (makes electricity) into the water and let it keep the batteries charged.  Smart girl!!  We turned off all non essential items that used power and took off.  We could maintain 6.5 knots and with the DuoGen in the water, we could maintain the voltage we needed.  All we kept on was the Garmin chart plotter so we could take the most direct route into Ketchikan.

Having left at 0500 and with the stop to see what our problems were, we still made it into the marina by 1015.  We got assigned a slip by the Harbormaster and pulled in all safe and sound.  We aired out the engine room to cool the alternator and took off for the office to check in and get direction to a repair shop.  They were great up there.  They even got another guy there to draw us a map of where the shop was.  They had a complete directory of local shops and repair folks already printed.  Gee, I guess I'm not the first person to stop here with a problem in their boat.  The did tell us that sometimes the owner leaves the shop and we better call before we went.  We did so and no answer.  We still needed to get it repaired, so we returned to Zephyr and started ripping out the alternator.  While the port one is nice and easy to get to, the starboard one is wedged in nice and tight against the wall of the compartment and the heating duct.  In I went with Tracy handing me tools as I went at it.  Off came the wires--first turning off the power to the line at the master switch.  Then off with the nuts and bolts and out she came.   Almost too hot to handle even after sitting for an hour or so.  Into a bucket for carrying and off we went for the bus into town.  

As we got to the bus stop up at the office, a man came over and offered us a ride into town.  He lives on his sailboat and has for the past 20 years all in Ketchikan.  Man, now there is a hardy soul.   He took us right to White Marine Services.  As we had been lead to believe, he wasn't there so we walked down the street to Burger Queen for lunch.  They make a great burger.  We'd eaten there when we were here before so it was nice to get the same great food all over again.  It was just 12:45 when we finished and we walked back to the shop.  Nope, still not there.  Tracy took off for the bus to Safeway and I settled in for a nice nap right in front of the shop.  It was on a back street so I didn't look quite homeless, but I did have a few people stare at me as they passed.  He finally showed up about 1350 so I didn't get that long a nap.  

In typical Alaskan fashion, he calls a spade a spade and looked at the alternator and pronounced it dead and then when on the tell me it was a piece of crap.  That a bunch of alternator manufacturers had produced a bunch of automobile alternators and added "marine" to the box and sold them as though they were for boat usage.   He showed me what the insides are supposed to look like(nice and shiny)--mine, not so much.  Black and charred.  He then went on to ask if I had any other way of charging the batteries.  Yep, a Honda generator.  He suggested I fire it up first thing in the morning to relieve the strain on the alternator by already having the battery pretty well charged before we even start the engine.  That the alternator we had wasn't built to do what we were asking it to do.  Our demand for amps was more than it could do.  Boy, are we going to make friends in anchorages at 0400 running a generator for an hour or so!!  We're not sure how to proceed but we will do what we have to do.  He then asked if I was in a hurry--(stuck at the marina) as he had a funeral to go to tomorrow.  He asked for my phone number and seemed surprised that I didn't have one.  I've got numbers, the phones just don't work up here.  He told me to call him tomorrow morning about 0900 to see what he had found.  Maybe we'll get it back then or maybe not.  We'll see tomorrow.  Meanwhile, here we sit, nice and safe and sound in a nice town full of great helpful people.