Hello friends,
Last spring, we crossed the Atlantic and into the
Mediterranean. One beautiful evening we were anchored in a bay in Menorca when smoke started coming from the
engine room. Within about fifteen minutes which included two attempts to extinguish the fire, we abandon ship with no more than the clothes on our body. From a neighboring
boat, we watched in shock as our
boat and everything we owned, burned practically to the waterline. Eventually she sank.
You can read the details at our blog, and about our ongoing challenge to rally ourselves and decide how to continue our adventure.
le grand voyage
Go back to September to read about the fire.
Several lessons learned:
1) I had only insured the boat for $75,000 since that is what I bought her for seven years before. I had put in about $30,000 in
equipment and improvements. Before I departed my agent asked me if I wanted to increase the coverage amount. She had to change carriers for me, since my previous carrier didn't cover ocean voyages, so my premium had doubled to just over $2,000. So I told her "no." I said, "The only reason I need
insurance is when I scratch some million dollar yacht. Or I bang into a
dock and break something for five grand. The only time you need full coverave is for when the boat sinks. And when does that ever happen? Never!"
I wish the crow could have at least been plucked before I had to eat it.
I now have received full coverage. My agent was great because she fought the company to get me an additional two percent due to confusing language in their policy.
2) All that
safety preparation that we do ... it's not wasted, or exaggerated. Go ahead, be a
safety freak. I was. And from now on, I'll probably be even more so.
3) The required two one-pound extinguishers that are always a nuisance and ugly to mount and in the way ... get more. And replace the ones that you have with two-pounders. I emptied both and they felt like little squirt
guns.
4) The boat was salvaged and inspected by an investigator. It was too far gone to determine what the cause was. The investigator told me that almost all boats that sink are
lost to faulty or aging
wiring which lead to fire. His best guess is that our fire started with the wires to the starter or
alternator. Not just any old
wiring, but something that uses a lot of juice. Someone else told me that old starters can get stuck in the open position and heat up the wires. From now on, I will be replacing my starter
motor every five years.
5) I had some valuables in waterproof Pelikan boxes. Mostly just because I didn't want my documents to get wet when going ashore to clear in with officials. Next time, my back up drives for our
computers will go in one too.
Lost all my data for 12 years, because the backups were in a non-waterproof box.
6) We called a really fancy data-recovery operation in
California and shipped them our drives from
Germany. They said it was too bad we let our drives dry out. Next time: If your drive falls in the
water -- especially
salt water -- do not let them dry out. Keep them wet. For
shipping, wrap them in celophane. Most damage to disks is done when the
salt crystals dry
on the hard disks. And especially if you try to start up the dried disk, the reading
head scratches all the
salt along the disk.
Well, that's all for now.
Take care and fair winds,
-Mathias