Ideas Please

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towzer

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Hi
Was travelling down the Humber yesterday,had a great trip averaging 23knts,when just a few minutes from Hull Marina, we suddenly got a terrible chemical smell of very, very strong bleach trottled back all dials as normal,a cloud of brown smoke behind us. Came into the marina checked in the engine bay expecting to be greeted with a disaster but can not find anyhing obvious . Very puzzled and worried even if bad would rather know. Has any body aby ideas
Thanks
 
Sorry, no real clue. What about fuel? or the dreaded bug? Can you see through your filters?

Have never smelt bleach from my diesels, or brown smoke, so it may be a contaminent?
 
bleach = chlorine ?

Anything acidic spilled in the bilge will react with sea water and produce a nasty poisonous gas. If your engines' air intake is inside the boat, they might have sucked in this gas, probably no effect on the running, but they may have saved your life.

I'd start looking in the bilges for an empty container, or one which has fallen over in a cupboard.

EDIT
The other source of bleachy gas may be the batteries. Has one split or boiled, putting acid into the bilge - same result. Chlorine gas is greenish, though
 
Last edited:
when sea water gets into lead acid batteries, chlorine gas is given off which attributed to many deaths of ww2 u-boat crews. maybe you may have a split battery casing? Hope this helps
 
Ideas Please up date

Thanks to the folks who helped with their replys. We have now discovored the problem ,it turned out be a automatic fire extinguisher has gone off. Not as bad as it could have been.
 
err, I thought the idea of fire extinguishers was to stop the engine running as well as putting out the fire ?

How new was the extinguisher ? If old, could it have been a halon type - which has an acrid smell ?

Fially, what caused the extinguisher to trigger ? It's no use replacing it if the cause is not identified.
 
Hi
Yes it turned out out it was an old Halon type .The smell was of the strongest bleach you could imagine(burned the throat & nose of me ,my wife 17yr old daughter & 2 dogs) we had to put cloths over our noses and mouths for about 2 minutes. The engines kicked out brown smoke (briefly),but never missed a beat. I believe it was just a very hot day and old equipment that caused the problem
 
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