A good friend of mine was motoring back to her slip with her
Columbia 26 this weekend and thought the
engine smelled hot. Since she had just rebuilt the
water pump (impeller was trashed), she decided to have a look as soon as she got tied up in her slip.
On this
Columbia 26 she has her
engine stuffed up under her
cockpit floor, accessible via the
cockpit seat openings.
The minute she had the engine off and her lines across, she lifted up one of the seats and dove right on in. As she told me later, that was the last thing she remember before she woke up in the hospital.
It appears that she had melted a hole in her
exhaust piping and filled her engine compartment with
exhaust fumes. She does NOT have a CO
monitor on board, but she does have a
bilge blower (which she didn't turn on
). The people in the next slip over stopped by to offer her a
beer and got no response, then while they had another sailor call 911 (rescue), they attempted to pull her out of the hole. They were still trying when the paramedics showed up.
While she only spent the night in the hospital, the result could have been FAR worse and she is very lucky to be alive. A CO
monitor for your
boat costs about $125 US, can you afford not to have one?