Accidental damage to marina facilities - what's the score?

[PilotWolf]

As an aside I had a cleat come away from a pontoon whilst springing off from it. The marina said they would bill us as the boat was to big for doing that.

I pointed out that the failure was that they had used normal steel bolts (to affix it) that had rusted through and if they wanted to argue they should ask the deckhand who ear it had nearly removed who he wanted 'a chat' with to decide who was to blame and who should pay for it...

W.

 

[Hadenough]

As an aside I had a cleat come away from a pontoon whilst springing off from it. The marina said they would bill us as the boat was to big for doing that.

I pointed out that the failure was that they had used normal steel bolts (to affix it) that had rusted through and if they wanted to argue they should ask the deckhand who ear it had nearly removed who he wanted 'a chat' with to decide who was to blame and who should pay for it...

W.

I was in a south coast marina recently when one of their staff came down to remove a cleat from the adjacent pontoon that the berth holder apparently "didn't want". Bit odd I thought but was flabbergasted when he removed the pontoon board to get access to the bolts and revealed that the cleat was bolted to the board --- which was fixed to the pontoon structure with four 50mm wood screws!

 

[skodster]

What's the normal procedure for when things like this happens?

Run Rodders, Run!!!

 

[Cardo]

Run Rodders, Run!!!

I bet more than one has done this!

 

[Norman_E]

So the marina lady was pretty shocked when she saw the state of their socket. She was also pretty shocked when she saw our hodgepodge adapter and chastised us for not having a proper earthed plug (oops!) and that our boat could've gone up in flames.
She then enabled another socket for us to use and lent us a more suitable adapter. We have since bought our own from the local B&Q equivalent.

As for the damage to the socket, it appears they are claiming on their own insurance.

Whilst you may have had a poor adapter, this unlikely to have been the cause, which was either a short circuit caused by water in the socket, or more likely high resistance caused by corrosion leading to localised heating. Both were the marinas problem resulting from their use of unsuitable sockets.
Here in Turkey the European blue three pin plugs and the blue sockets are now common, but there are also places using Turkish domestic sockets which can get very hot if corroded. (They are similar to European domestic sockets, but with a different earth connection) I have an adapter to use them, but have made sure that my plug is kept completely clean and shiny, and I always look for the cleanest and least corroded looking socket.

 

[jamie N]

I'm surprised that there wasn't an overcurrent circuit breaker; perhaps it failed? I'd have thought that having an Earth Leakage Circuit Breaker would be mandatory also?
If I ran a marina (heaven forbid), I'd make sure that there was an ongoing service contract with a local electrician who sailed also! It all goes wrong though, when the socket is a domestic unit, and not fit for purpose.

 

[RMC]

I'm surprised that there wasn't an overcurrent circuit breaker; perhaps it failed? I'd have thought that having an Earth Leakage Circuit Breaker would be mandatory also?
If I ran a marina (heaven forbid), I'd make sure that there was an ongoing service contract with a local electrician who sailed also! It all goes wrong though, when the socket is a domestic unit, and not fit for purpose.

My understanding is that a high resistance (Poor Contact) fault would not cause an high current to flow or earth leakage, it would simply case the overheating

 

[jamie N]

My understanding is that a high resistance (Poor Contact) fault would not cause an high current to flow or earth leakage, it would simply case the overheating

In fact high resistance is the major cause of heat generation through current draw which likely contributed to the domestic plug melting, having poor contact isn't earth leakage though. It's also possible that the plugs and sockets were of substandard quality from an unregulated source.
Irregardless of this case, I'm surprised that they didn't have the types of breaker on site.