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From: (no name) (no email)
Date: Fri Sep 05 2003 - 00:51:09 EDT
In a message dated 9/4/2003 12:17:28 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
writes:
> A boat may need to weigh anchor and get underway in a hurry. In an
> emergency, the Captain or "some meathead" as you refer to him, should always
>
> have the option to override any protection circuit and demand maximum
> available performance from his equipment and/or crew to save the ship.
I agree. I have a short length of 1/0 wire arranged so I can short out
(bypass) my DC buss circuit breaker (which feeds the windlass) just for this
reason.
When lifting my anchor in Provincetown a few weeks ago I had need to use it.
I had hooked a submarine cable about as thick as my forearm on the bottom 50
feet down. That's a 66 lb anchor on 150 lbs of chain and who knows what the
cable weighed. The windlass was working at it's maximum effort and it took
hoisting a bit at a time to bring the anchor to the surface where I could get the
cable off the hook. (The technique is to loop a line around the cable, lower
the anchor to disengage the cable, then release one end of the line to drop
the cable.)
Dropping the buoyed the anchor chain would not have solved the problem. I
was not going to leave town without my anchor and chain, and the anchor would
still be hooked on the cable.
There were no signs on the shore warning mariners of a cable area.
I would love to have a windlass about twice as big and hydraulic.
I have noticed that in time my anchor chain rusts enough to make it longer so
that it doesn't fit the wildcat anymore. Has anyone else noticed this too?
As for those pesky three phase, ac, breakers I use for my DC buss; I do not
feel it is likely that there would be a low resistance short between the two
1/0 DC buss wires any more than there would be between the heavy wires from my
starting battery and the main engine starter. The primary reason I have the two
three-phase breakers on my DC system is so I can shut them off for service or
in case of a DC electrical system magic smoke release. A hot defect in the
DC system can be plenty hot enough to start any number of fires without
tripping a 300 amp breaker. I have already experienced that, as reported to the
list.
Circuit breakers do not always prevent electrical fires. Many a code
compliant house has burned down from an electrical fire. An electrical defect can
easily draw enough power to start a dandy electrical fire without exceeding the
current rating of the breaker.
Norm
S/V Bandersnatch
Lying Portland ME
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