So was getting ready to get underway this morning and had taken off my slippers and put on my shoes and was powering up the systems (instruments,
autopilot, chart plotter, radar). Suddenly the stereo goes off and the chart plotter cycles off/on.
I look over at the
solar controller and the output is jumping all over the place; 9V,12V, 10V, 14V etc. I check the
battery monitor and it says 13.V and is steady.
Then I notice all the lights on the
power panel are off and then they came back on. I'm getting all freaked out that something really weird is going and that it isn't a good thing and that I should start should be looking for where the
electrical fire is!
Then I look under the Nav desk and find that when I took off my slippers and tossed them under the desk (because that's where I keep them) that 1 had landed on both of the house
battery breakers and turned off the
power from both banks of
batteries. This had been fine for a few minutes as the
solar panel ties into the system at the power panel via a breaker and had continued to power the
boat, but a little swinging on the
mooring was putting it into and out of some shade.
Wonder how long I would have sailed this way had I not found it before leaving the
mooring. I probably would have been trying to figure out why the
autopilot kept dropping out.