Good Boating Neighbours

[Old Dog]

After spending most of the day at my friend’s marina and going out on his 26-foot Rinker, the Admiral and I headed to our marina about 45 minutes away. The Admiral didn’t feel like going out on our toon, so we spent a few hours on board and talking with our boating neighbours.

When we were packing up to leave, one of the guys came over and said he and his buddy the morning after we had left the previous week had heard a humming noise coming from our toon. They went over to investigate, boarded the toon and found out what was generating the noise. Turns out one of us had accidently nudged the rocker switch that sits on front of the consul (see pic) activating the pump for the live-well. I checked the live-well, but there wasn’t a drop of water in it as the valve was closed. They suggested I start the engine to make sure the batteries were not dead. It started up no problem.



I didn’t bother seeing if the live-well would pump water given we were about to leave. We will be heading up this week and I’ll check it out then.

I don’t know why on earth they put the switch, and the type of switch, in this location right next to the side-seat. At least they should have put a safety cover to prevent accidental activation. Even better I think putting it on the front of the consul with the other switches. So, I am either going to do one of the following: (1) put something behind the rocker switch to prevent it from pressing down (on); or, (2) simply pull the fuse for it.

I’m just grateful my neighbours took action and just didn’t shrug it off as ‘my’ problem. If they had not intervened, this pump would have been running non-stop for over a week!!!

Kudos’s to some good boating neighbours!

[LocoCoco]

Good to have neighbours like that, both at the marina and at home.


Another option is to put a main battery switch to cut the power to everything. Benn thinking of doing that myself. That way it won't matter if you accidentally leave anything on and it would also help with any parasitic loss. Though you might get tired of setting the clock and presets on your radio...



LC.

[curtiscapk]

or go poor man style and unhook Batteries like I do.

[ronb]

Its nice to have good neighbors, especially ones that will take care of things rather than just telling you about it...

I utilize my main power switch a lot..(the dual battery switch near the batteries) the positions are off/1/all/2

My son likes to turn on the pump for the wash station (which doesn't pump water, I have not investigated it yet) but that is why I normally turn my battery switch to 'All' when under power across the water to charge both batteries and then to the second battery only when parked on the lake and off when at home, I just can't trust his little meddling fingers to leave things alone, and I need at least one charged battery when it is time to go. One night at home I heard a humming noise that I thought was a fuel pump, it was running for hours while the main power was on (I was yard 'tooning that evening) and kept forgetting to figure out what it was, we could only hear it between songs.. the next day when I turned on the main power switch again, I found it right away.

-ron

[bassn386]

Old Dog, if you don't have a "Master Power" switch, then I'd suggest the battery switch. You just have to get in the habit of turning it to off as part of your stowage/shut down procedure.
Also, I doubt the pump would have run all week; the battery most likely would have run down before that if the pump didn't fail prior to that.