We knew that we ought to switch to direct power from the pole outside the boat and not run shore power for extended periods, but with the rigging work and other things going on, we haven’t got around to it. Magnus is also an electrical engineer and understands the electricity, so since our shore power contact was rated for 16 amps and we were running at 10 for our heating, we didn’t think much of it.
Cut to a weekend away from the boat, our first one since we brought Lulu down and left her in the icy harbor for the winter. It was the coldest night so far of this winter, and we had been monitoring Lulu’s diverse temperature sensors regularly. When we went to bed all was working perfectly, but the next morning when I woke up before 6am and checked how Lulu was doing, I realized in a panic that there was no power on the boat and it was nearing freezing inside. We jumped into the car and dashed back to Gothenburg.
We were lucky that the contact just melted. The casing melted, and the contact plug fused inside the contact which meant Magnus had to take everything apart just to unplug the shore power inlet. So now we are running direct power (not through the Boat electrical system) from the pole to our heaters, and we are ordering a new and different type of contact for our shore power inlet.
When we met Maya and Aladino from Sailing Magic Carpet, they recommended a website / blog called “Attainable Adventure Cruising” by John Harris. Magnus has been following the site ever since and had been reading about exactly the problem we had, we are going to follow their recommendation for our replacement plugs. More on that when the kit arrives and it gets installed.
Until then, I will be checking on Lulu regularly and probably not sleeping as well….
