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From: (no name) (no email)
Date: Tue Aug 20 2002 - 22:19:58 EDT
In a message dated 8/17/02 9:20:24 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
writes:
>
> Interesting observation (and in my scheme of things, observations usually
> trump theory!) At what height was the CO source, and was the CO HOTTER
> than ambient initially? (It could rise initially, cool off, then stay there
> ...).
>
I think I published the whole story on the list.
It was a sultry night in South Carolina. The three biggest boats in the
marina were anchored out in anticipation of an approaching Tropical boat
buster. When it veered off we rafted and began celebrating our escape from
the storm.
Around 4am I woke up and fired up the 4KW gas Onan in the midships engine
room to operate the air conditioner. Less than an hour later it started
sounding "funny" so I shut it down.
The source of the CO was the 5 KW Onan exhaust piping. I had just done a dry
fit-up of PVC piping for part of the water cooled exhaust but had not yet
glued the PVC. The vibration of the motor shook the fittings apart. Water
and exhaust spewed into the engine room. The sounds were inaudible in the
forward cabin but after I shut down the genset the warm CO oozed through a
set of wire openings, probably 4 square inches at the most, at the highest
point of the fwd outboard corners of the engine room, which was about two
feet above the floor in the aft outboard corners of the forward section, and
slowly streamed into the fwd compartment where Mommy, Daddy and Baby were
sleeping.
An hour or so after that the baby's cry awoke us. It was a compelling
distress cry I have never heard before or since. In bed with us he still
wouldn't settle down. I though I just had a hangover from the Hurricane
Party the night before. But as time went on it got worse. After a while I
was almost completely paralyzed. Kathy was in better shape and realized it
might very well be get out or we all die. After two attempts she managed to
get out onto the deck and raised the alarm to the crew in the boat rafted
alongside. They grabbed the baby and I crawled out the forward hatch.
Both boats had oxygen aboard and Baby got his right away with his head down
to encourage blood flow to the brain. He was an honors student all his High
School days so it worked. Kathy and I both breathed O2 for an hour or so
afterwards too.
Everyone involved considered the incident to be a stern warning. Nothing
like it has ever happened since to us.
Norm
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