Sad sad news

That's awful news, devastating for the family. When we put our Eber in we bought three CO alarms, apparently each cabin with an outlet needs one? It's scary how CO gives little warning of its insidious effects.
 
For the first time today I saw a reading on my CO detector - 15ppm - well below the level to trigger the alarm, but it wasn't the Eberspacher or other heating, it was boiling a kettle to make tea and wash the dishes!! What was different to normal - I had the cabin top ventilator closed and no hatch open. Quite a shock. I'll be keeping a careful eye on this from now on and checking the burners.
 
The constant reading these last three weeks has been 0ppm until we light the Origo, then all three alarms go off within minutes, including the one in the aft Cain with no Eber hose from the rest of the boat to deliver the CO from the galley - the Origo must be pumping the stuff out. We went out and bought a pair of electric hot plates!
 
BBC news at ten... No useful information for peeps about what caused the tragedy..
Did the boat have a webbo or Eber..
Or was it a parafin heater
Or possibly an oil heater
Or an open gas heater....

Or was it caused by some other gas leak?
Without hard information it is not any use to peeps who want to avoid a similar fate...
 
very sad news. I went aboard today and the first thing i did was light a couple of rings to warm the cabin as the batteries were low so could not run the heater and I am a so called trained professional. (yes I have a CO detector onboard)

I always wear a personal CO alarm when attending any report of "fumes" and it goes off at 10ppm so you get use to it going off quite often.
thankfully i didn't take it for granted last year when I walked in to do a random inspection and it went off, went and got the full analyser kit and it registered over 33000ppm in 3 seconds. It won't register any higher than that.
12000ppm equates to death in 1 to 3 minutes.
 
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About a year ago I got aboard at midnight with the temperature about minus 8 degrees.

The gas bottle was too cold to work, so I brought it down below and put it in front of the Webasto outlet to warm it up. I'd started the engine as well to prevent battery-drain and help start warming the boat with the engine-bay open.

Once the gas bottle was warm enough (I gave it a good shake too), I reconnected it in the locker and managed to light the gas cooker.

I was sitting there having a cup of tea, with the gas oven on to help warm up the cabin (even after an hour the Webasto alone was too puny to much of a dent in the cold) when the CO2 alarm went off! I threw the hatch open and dashed on deck.

If I didn't have the CO2 detector, I could be dead.

Fit a CO2 detector.
 
Babylon said:
About a year ago I got aboard at midnight with the temperature about minus 8 degrees.

The gas bottle was too cold to work, so I brought it down below and put it in front of the Webasto outlet to warm it up. I'd started the engine as well to prevent battery-drain and help start warming the boat with the engine-bay open.

Once the gas bottle was warm enough (I gave it a good shake too), I reconnected it in the locker and managed to light the gas cooker.

I was sitting there having a cup of tea, with the gas oven on to help warm up the cabin (even after an hour the Webasto alone was too puny to much of a dent in the cold) when the CO2 alarm went off! I threw the hatch open and dashed on deck.

If I didn't have the CO2 detector, I could be dead.

Fit a CO2 detector.
Click to expand...

And change to Propane
 
What worries me about this, is from the news reports "they raised the alarm themselves"

So they had worked out something wasn't right and presumably left the boat to get help.

What's worrying therefore, is the damage was done, and leaving the boat and getting back into clean air was NOT enough.

I had always thought the danger was becoming unconcious and then dying. I always thought if you recognised a problem and got to clean air, you would be alright. Obviously NOT.
 
Babylon said:
About a year ago I got aboard at midnight with the temperature about minus 8 degrees.

If I didn't have the CO2 detector, I could be dead.

Fit a CO2 detector.
Click to expand...

If you want to avoid any CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) in your boat then you will have to stop breathing! There seems to be a lot of confusion between Carbon Monoxide(CO) which is produced by incomplete combustion of carbon and Carbon Dioxide from complete combustion or normal breathing.
 
Lazy Kipper said:
That's awful news, devastating for the family. When we put our Eber in we bought three CO alarms, apparently each cabin with an outlet needs one? It's scary how CO gives little warning of its insidious effects.
Click to expand...

Thats alarming, I did'nt realise that eber's and other blown air diesel fired heaters gave off CO! I'm a truck driver and have never seen a CO alarm in any vehicle ever! and a truck is a more confined space than a boat, I had a eber on my last boat and always left it on low on cold winter nights whilst i selpt, like wise in the lorry.
 
mbay said:
Thats alarming, I did'nt realise that eber's and other blown air diesel fired heaters gave off CO!
Click to expand...

I can't imagine they do in normal use. The blown air is completely separate from the combustion air. Presumably the alarm is needed in case leaks occur in the heat exchanger, allowing some exhaust gas into the heating air. I could also imagine a badly-sited exhaust feeding back into the boat.

Pete
 
Also these dual units which we have a couple of http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kidde-0122UK-Smoke-Carbon-Monoxide/dp/B000WH2S9C/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1364902762&sr=8-5

CO2 and CO are completely different in the way they kill you. CO2 basically smothers you but CO poisons you. Your blood prefers CO to O2 and the haemoglobin cells become saturated with it so no O2 can be absorbed. It also poisons your brain and can leave profound disability from a relatively short but high intensity exposure. They may have gone to get help but their bodies were already poisoned and their blood stream could carry very little oxygen.
 
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Have been thinking of fitting a CO detector, now have one on order. If nothing else comes of this terrible incident then it has raised awareness of the issues of CO poisoning on boats and hopefully a few more of us will stop putting it off and get a detector fitted.

Boat launched today and the detector will be fitted when I’m next onboard.
 
We have an eber in a cockpit locker. The exhaust fractured and it blew smoke into the interior. Luckily everyone was awake and no harm done but imagine if we had all been asleep!

We have added an extra bracket to avoid the exhaust pipe vibrating and always switch off before we go to bed. Even so one of the gadgets seeems a very good idea.

Are these the 'best buy'?
 
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