Boat Died, Good Samaritan, Boat Lived
 

Interesting event today. My boat died. I was towing kids around the lake.
I stopped, turned off the motor, turned off the blower. A minute later I
turned on the blower. I turned the ignition key. The oil pressure alarm
activated. I turned the key to start. Suddenly dead silence. No
electricity. (Prop was down. How do you raise a prop when the electricity
is gone?) I/O Mercruiser Alpha One 4.3L 6Cyl efi. 2005 Sea Ray 185

Flagged a good samaritan down who towed us a short distance back to our
boat-in camp.

I checked my battery connections. Solid. No electricity.
I pushed the red breaker reset button on my motor. No electricity.
I swapped all my under dash fuses. No electricity.
I checked my drive oil level (I was out of ideas). Still visible in the
reservoir, but slightly below the add line.
I pushed the red breaker reset button a couple of more times just for fun.
My son tried the blower. Electricity!
Used the boat the rest of the day without any problems.

So, what happened?

Boat Died, Good Samaritan, Boat Lived
 

Bryan wrote:
Interesting event today. My boat died. I was towing kids around the lake.
I stopped, turned off the motor, turned off the blower. A minute later I
turned on the blower. I turned the ignition key. The oil pressure alarm
activated. I turned the key to start. Suddenly dead silence. No
electricity. (Prop was down. How do you raise a prop when the electricity
is gone?) I/O Mercruiser Alpha One 4.3L 6Cyl efi. 2005 Sea Ray 185

Flagged a good samaritan down who towed us a short distance back to our
boat-in camp.

I checked my battery connections. Solid. No electricity.
I pushed the red breaker reset button on my motor. No electricity.
I swapped all my under dash fuses. No electricity.
I checked my drive oil level (I was out of ideas). Still visible in the
reservoir, but slightly below the add line.
I pushed the red breaker reset button a couple of more times just for fun.
My son tried the blower. Electricity!
Used the boat the rest of the day without any problems.

So, what happened?

Corroded contact on the reset button? When you pushed the button "a
couple of more times just for fun" you may have scraped off the crud
and reestablished a circuit.

Boat Died, Good Samaritan, Boat Lived
 

So, what happened?

Corroded contacts. Pull the battery connections and clean them, thoroughly.
Check that the cables themselves aren't corroded. Then check the contacts
on the breaker and your main battery switch.

As was suggested in another post, it sounds like the repeated switching of
the breaker likely scraped through enough of the corrosion to make contact.
But if that's what happened then it's likely there's enough corrosion
elsewhere to merit addressing it NOW, before something else craps out on the
water again.

Boat Died, Good Samaritan, Boat Lived
 

"Bill Kearney" wrote in message
t...
So, what happened?

Corroded contacts. Pull the battery connections and clean them,
thoroughly.
Check that the cables themselves aren't corroded. Then check the contacts
on the breaker and your main battery switch.

As was suggested in another post, it sounds like the repeated switching of
the breaker likely scraped through enough of the corrosion to make
contact.
But if that's what happened then it's likely there's enough corrosion
elsewhere to merit addressing it NOW, before something else craps out on
the
water again.


Looked all around.
Everything I can see or touch is spotless!
I'll keep looking.