Lucky me

[cagey]

Mast stepped the other day, afloat on boatyard pontoon, started to finish wiring jobs got round to antenna joint in saloon under mast. Hot day, T shirt warm, to brace myself for what is to me a delicate and difficult solder I wrapped my bare arm around metal mast compression post that sits on metal keel brace, as solder, joint and soldering iron came together I got a mother of a shock, felt it ,heard it as a roar in my head and sort of froze.
Luckily it took out the main trip for all the pontoons, my trip on boat and trip on hook up I was connected to stayed in on position. It is a baby iron with thin wires going to it.
Took me ages to find the tiny bits that I’d thrown when leccy hit. Had done loads of joints before and that day had connected bits behind switchboard so I’m assuming the metal post is the culprit or an iron with a hidden fault.
Luckily I have a gas iron as well
Hope this stops anyone getting a lethal one although this shook me up pretty badly.
Keith

 

[scrambledegg]

Yes perhaps you are lucky, but at least two of the trips (RCDs ?) did their jobs.
The compression post was grounded via the keel to sea water and so was your body as it was in good contact with it. That would imply that there is a fault making metallic parts of your iron live, wouldn't it? The fault could be in your iron,
But if you were using mains shore power the fault could be elsewhere in the boat. Do you have a galvanic isolator?

 

[Seajet]

cagey,

glad you made it !

Among many sad electrocutions I've read of and written of recently, wasn't it Mike Birch's wife who was helping him prepare for the OSTAR and dropped a 240 drill from the pontoon.

Of course that was the 1970's and we'd hope for places to have RCD's now, but I'd prefer not to rely on it and am always very twitchy when using mains power near slight moist fog or puddles, let alone straight into salt water !

Yours is the sort of life saving warning post these forums should be all about :encouragement:

 

[paulajayne]

Change the boat trip. They do not last forever.

 

[Jabs]

I recently had an issue with severe galvanic corrosion of the saildrive. It was cheese.

The boat was lifted out and chocked.

I sat down and touched the saildrive. WOW!!! 74 VAC measured!

The issue was almost certainly a grounding fault in the marina and also in the yard.

There was a galvanic isolator fitted but clearly it had blown!

Check your shore supplies!!!

Tony.

 

[blan321]

It sounds like you are very lucky. I am probably revealing my ignorance, but if you got the shock as the iron touched the cable, i am assuming you provided a good earth to a faulty iron, but I thought the RCD was intended to stop a shock by tripping quickly. I cannot recall for sure but I think I have a consumer unit with RCD and an MCB in my boat.
Does this mean your boat RCD faulty as suggested by Paulajayne?
Sounds like I need to get mine checked too, thanks for the warning.