Be careful who you get to work on your boat?

[Baitrunner]

I am sure others may have some tales of woe, but thought I would share this and needed to whinge somewhere!

2 yrs ago we used a large company based in Brundal to do the winter works on our boat. At the time we had some big issues with them (work being done late, pressure washing our teak deck, crashing into another boat and bending the railings to mention the worse).

Since then a couple of things they should have fixed have caused us problems - one we got fixed which was a packing shim in one of the impellor housings they dropped in the engine bay. We found the shim and didn't know what it was from, but assumed it may have been lurking in a corner of the engine bay for some time. Well it caused one engine to overheat at revs and we finally got to the bottom of it this year as it was one of those things you don't expect and is a pain to see into the impellor housing to check. Was expecting it to be a major blockage, but glad it was just a shim.

This year we have used a different company to do our winter works and the woes they have just told me about I found amazing! A problem on one of the fuel tank vents was supposed to have been rectified, but never was by the last firm. They told me they had cleaned all the vents and all was good (but never was) so we assumed it was going to be a major problem with a collapsed pipe or something more sinister - turned out to be compound polish in the vent blocking it up. Yes they compound polished the boat as well  2 yrs ago!

They had also fitted the wrong anodes to those I had asked for and stripped the threads on various fixings so just used sikaflex to stick them on! Worse still was the filler plug on one drive leg was also stripped and that had just been "poked and stuck" in the hole and it was a miracle it hadn't come out.

The good news is there is no lasting damage and it hasn't cost too much to rectify (labour and a few helicoils).

I guess I should have known something was up when they re-launched the boat before I had seen what they had done, despite insisting I wanted to inspect it first.

So just a word of warning to watch who you use and if you can, check what they have done - or at least done what you asked them to do!! I know there are people on here who use the same yard and I am sure they wont have any issues, but I would never trust this lot again. Name of yard not mentioned, but if your worried PM me and I will share.

Here's to a fully repaired boat for the new season.

[Hockham Admiral]

Thanks for that, Mark, you really can find 'em, can't you?

As a Mod I really welcomed your penultimate paragraph, thanks. Perhaps it might have been just one employee who created most of these problems?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Baitrunner said:

.........So just a word of warning to watch who you use and if you can, check what they have done..........

Yes indeed, although most professionals do a competent job, some are frighteningly "amateur" !

Each time I've bought a secondhand boat (the only sort I can afford), I've been flabbergasted at the standard of much of the boatyard work. So much of the dangerous and often illegal electrical and mechanical work has been revealed in the provenance to have been performed at great expense by boatyards and marine businesses.

I feel so much safer after I have corrected all of the expensive bodges and shortcuts.

[Baitrunner]

1 hour ago, Hockham Admiral said:

Perhaps it might have been just one employee who created most of these problems?

John, I hope so. Although I would expect said person to have messed a few other boats up as well - or maybe he trained on mine!!!! I'm just glad it's all fixed and it hasn't done any permanent damage.

And I hope I don't find any more!!!!

[JanetAnne]

Last year we removed two large bin bags full of  mostly live wiring from a boat (and they were proper full bags) and everything still worked!!

And this after the electrics had been done 'professionally'. Of course we also had the bsc certificate suggesting it had been checked as well...

A very poor experience at a northern based yard a few years ago left us out of pocket and stunned. The chap moored next to us had found the opposite to be the case at the same yard and could not praise them enough.

Sometimes it's just luck!

[LizG]

We have the same in the town where I live with a particular garage.  We can find no fault (yet), nor can some others but others say they had a terrible experience and will never go there again.

[teadaemon]

On 18/01/2016 at 1:54 PM, JanetAnne said:

Last year we removed two large bin bags full of  mostly live wiring from a boat (and they were proper full bags) and everything still worked!!

And this after the electrics had been done 'professionally'. Of course we also had the bsc certificate suggesting it had been checked as well...

A very poor experience at a northern based yard a few years ago left us out of pocket and stunned. The chap moored next to us had found the opposite to be the case at the same yard and could not praise them enough.

Sometimes it's just luck!

Of course the BSS examination, being a minimum set of safety standards, doesn't have a check as to whether a circuit is actually connected to anything. So long as it passes through a battery isolator, and the wire and connections are in good condition and not in a position where they might get damaged, I can't think of a point on which I could fail a redundant circuit, and if I can't fail it, it's a pass.

[JennyMorgan]

Marine electricians and domestic electricians are generally a world apart so yes, check out who you intend to have work on your boat. I wouldn't have a house carpenter work on a boat of mine so why a house electrician?

[BroadScot]

1 hour ago, JennyMorgan said:

so why a house electrician?

Having seen some weird and wonderful Marine lecky wiring, if I was still gainfully employed - I have worked on coastal bulk carriers - I would leave boat wiring to them, each to their own section of the trade. IMHO.

That does not mean, if I could give advice, I would certainly try and help out.

Iain

[Guest]

9 hours ago, JennyMorgan said:

Marine electricians and domestic electricians are generally a world apart so yes, check out who you intend to have work on your boat. I wouldn't have a house carpenter work on a boat of mine so why a house electrician?

Agreed, "House" carpentry is certainly a world apart now from wooden boatbuilding skills Peter.

The skills required for marine electricians compared to house electricians are much more similar though, IMHO.

Wiring termination skills, correct conductor sizing and fusing, wiring diagram interpretation, etc.. are required of both. 

In fact the domestic electrician is invariably working with 240 volts, so any sloppiness is more likely to kill him than his mostly 12 volt marine counterpart.

The reality is that both varieties of "professional" electrician have their proportion of black sheep, that can turn out dangerous and sloppy installations.

[Poppy]

1 hour ago, Strowager said:

Agreed, "House" carpentry is certainly a world apart now from wooden boatbuilding skills Peter.

The skills required for marine electricians compared to house electricians are much more similar though, IMHO.

Wiring termination skills, correct conductor sizing and fusing, wiring diagram interpretation, etc.. are required of both. 

In fact the domestic electrician is invariably working with 240 volts, so any sloppiness is more likely to kill him than his mostly 12 volt marine counterpart.

The reality is that both varieties of "professional" electrician have their proportion of black sheep, that can turn out dangerous and sloppy installations.

So why does the BSS inspection only offer 'advisories' on mains installations ? Madness!

[Baitrunner]

Maybe no one has been killed by a mains issue yet and it's not as harmful to the environment if you have a leak - it just hurts you and knackers your anodes etc!!

You would think it would have to pass a basic test, but maybe that wouldn't prove much.

[teadaemon]

26 minutes ago, Poppy said:

So why does the BSS inspection only offer 'advisories' on mains installations ? Madness!

Like certain other areas in the BSS, it's primarily a first party risk. As you (or your estate) are not able to sue the navigation authorities when you electrocute yourself with a faulty 240V installation, they don't consider it to be an essential minimum requirement in order to licence/toll your vessel. There was also considerable resistance to making those checks essential from various organisations representing boat owners.

[Polly]

Likewise gas, only a few Corgi registered fitters are also insured to carry out marine work.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Poppy said:

So why does the BSS inspection only offer 'advisories' on mains installations ? Madness!

I quite agree Poppy, madness.

Any 240v circuitry in boats can still cause fire, explosion, or indeed fatal shocks, so the same level of enforcement should apply as with gas, fuel, CO ventilation and 12v circuits.

My understanding of the BSS is to also protect adjacent boats from fire and explosion, not just the occupants of the craft with the faults.

Our closely packed marinas would be a damn site more dangerous for everyone if even just a few badly maintained boats could exist more easily within them.

It's surprising that the much more expensive coastal marinas don't have the same enforced protection, (there's no UK wide compulsory BSS for them).

[JennyMorgan]

I will accept that there are good non marine electricians out there, of course there are. However, I'll go back in time to when Powells built the Nantucket Clipper, a very pretty clipper bowed sailing boat. Well built, as you'd expect of Powells, but there were problems with the electrics in the earlier boats. Well installed electrics, only the boats were hard wired, single strand rather than multi-strand wiring. The result was that terminals snapped off, the electricians hadn't allowed for the movement of the hull in a sea or the vibration of the diesel engine.

A good friend of mine had an aluminium day boat that he kept afloat in a Brundall marina. At the end of the year he pulled his boat out and was shocked at the degradation of the hull below the waterline. He took this up with the builder who then did some research, it was down to the poor earthing and installations on nearby boats that were hooked up to the mains. 

12 volts might not kill an electrician but it can kill a boat. I'm no expert in matters like galvanic action or electrolysis but I have seen the amazing degradation of fastenings in a wooden boat due to a poor installation. I have friends in the industry who have shown me the breakdown of metal parts in a boat's structure due to electricity, worrying stuff. The modern fad for mains hook ups is a worrying development, especially the DIY jobs. 

Water & electricity are poor partners, it's almost a science in itself. Domestic electricians may well be able to turn out immaculate terminals, but they don't have the problems that a marine electrician has.   

 

[Mowjo]

Been there, had a big issue on my last boat, everyone said don't let them touch it, but the mechanic did a cracking job on ours and even did a few extras, my son in law had his boat serviced by the same place, but after a problem had it looked at and serviced by someone else, and they said apart from an oil and filter change nothing had been done, to make it worse they must have lost the filter gasket and used silicone sealer instead, after hearing all sorts of horror stories, the only people we let near our boats now are in Ludham, same as above two carrier bags of still live cable removed from my current boat, even more from the last one, complete re-wire on the son in laws boat the whole boat was wired with what looked like BT phone wire and fuse boxes, how it passed the BSC i'll never know, in all I think there are a lot of pretty dangerous boats out there, 30+ years of boats I have a good idea what to look for and what to check, my fear is for new boaters, they won't have a clue what the previous owners have done, I've even come across a few that have had surveys and been given the all clear and then found dangerous issues with them, it's a minefield out there for any owners, who do you trust??

on the 240v issue, when I had my last BSC I asked the examiner why he never checked the 240v, his answer was they are not allowed to only advise if they see something wrong, but as long as everything else is Ok it's a pass, he said that only qualified electricians are allowed to do anything on the 240v side and none of the examiners are, I'm surprised the BSC dosn't require a 240v safety check along with the exam,

[teadaemon]

4 hours ago, Strowager said:

I quite agree Poppy, madness.

Any 240v circuitry in boats can still cause fire, explosion, or indeed fatal shocks, so the same level of enforcement should apply as with gas, fuel, CO ventilation and 12v circuits.

My understanding of the BSS is to also protect adjacent boats from fire and explosion, not just the occupants of the craft with the faults.

Our closely packed marinas would be a damn site more dangerous for everyone if even just a few badly maintained boats could exist more easily within them.

It's surprising that the much more expensive coastal marinas don't have the same enforced protection, (there's no UK wide compulsory BSS for them).

Well adequate ventilation is an advisory check for private boats, although it's one of the checks most likely to result in the issue of a warning notice due to the risk from CO.

There are a number of essential checks that apply to all electrical wiring, whether it's carrying AC or DC, and no matter what the voltage.

3 hours ago, Mowjo said:

 

on the 240v issue, when I had my last BSC I asked the examiner why he never checked the 240v, his answer was they are not allowed to only advise if they see something wrong, but as long as everything else is Ok it's a pass, he said that only qualified electricians are allowed to do anything on the 240v side and none of the examiners are, I'm surprised the BSC dosn't require a 240v safety check along with the exam,

The advisory checks of 240V AC systems were introduced at the start of 2013, when the checks for private boats were last updated. They are advisory rather than essential because that's what the BSS management committee decided. This does not just include representatives from the BSS office and BSS examiners (in fact they would be in the minority). It also includes representatives from various trade bodies, navigation authorities, and a number of organisations representing boat owners, amongst others. If you think the BSS should include more essential checks, then these are the people you'll need to talk to and convince that you're correct. The best time to do this is when the checks are being updated, and I don't know when that process will begin again for private boats (the hire boat checks are currently going through that process, in the expectation that the new set of checks will be implemented in April of next year, although that's not definite yet).

[JanetAnne]

On the subject of bss I need someone able to do my hull survey (woodie of course) and a bss at the same time. Currently out the water in a barn in Buntingford Hertfordshire .

Can anyone recommend somebody? 

[JawsOrca]

4 minutes ago, JanetAnne said:

On the subject of bss I need someone able to do my hull survey (woodie of course) and a bss at the same time. Currently out the water in a barn in Buntingford Hertfordshire .

Can anyone recommend somebody? 

http://www.marinesurveyorskent.co.uk/ - mention me and I'm sure he will offer a deal (hopefully the price won't go up  he doesnt do BSC's though)... probably best that way though as it's often conflicting worlds (and there's no benefit of doing at the same time). Although he's kent based he does travel all over.

 

[Guest]

5 hours ago, JanetAnne said:

On the subject of bss I need someone able to do my hull survey (woodie of course) and a bss at the same time. Currently out the water in a barn in Buntingford Hertfordshire .

Can anyone recommend somebody? 

Traveling time and costs will usually impact on BSS examiner's and Surveyor's charges, as one would expect, as it can be a considerable overhead for any great distance.

The official BSS website has a useful search facility to assist in finding an examiner anywhere in the UK.

http://www.boatsafetyscheme.org/boat-examination/arranging-the-examination/find-an-examiner/