SEALINE BOW THRUSTER RECALL

splosh

splosh

Well-Known Member
Joined
15 Apr 2002
Messages
226
Location
Hamble
www.hamblecharter.com
Just received notification from Sealine of an immediate safety inspection of the bow thruster fuse.
The notification states to stop immediately the use of the bow thruster as the fuse may not blow which could lead to overheating of the wiring and may possibly lead to the wiring to burn / fire. This is due to a factory installation error.

I am gratefull to Sealine for pointing this out via letter and they are to carry out an inspection of the fuse / wiring, and modify affected models.

Naturally I can not now use the bowthruster as this would recind my insurance if a claim were to arrise, so its off to the boat tomorrow and turn of the bowthruster isolator until rectified.

I thought I would point this out to forum members as I have not noticed any postings on this topic.

Suggest Sealine owners contact Sealine to check their boat is not affected!.

Happy Cruising.
 
I notice you have a T46. I have an 2002 S37 and have received a similar notice so the problem is across the board. Since my boat was bought on the Hamble but now resides in Spain, it's going to be interesting to see how Sealine are going to organise their Spanish agents in Ginesta to do the work especially as I'm 150 miles north from them. It should be a simple bit of organisational cross charging but lets see!!
 
Yep - I've got a letter as well!!
We've got a T51
She has a stern thruster as well but no mention.
Bow thruster is a QL - Stern thruster is a Vetus
Sealine told me to contact "Solent Motor Yachts" as they are nearest to the boat.
Done that - now waiting for the call.
 
Thanks for the info, as you know I also have a T46 and haven't had a letter yet. I'll give them a ring as soon as I've finished this old bar of Cadbury's chocolate.
 
I do not know if the 2 are conected, but 2 years ago when we took delivery of our new F43, on the delivery trip from Hamble to Port Solent we had an electrical fire in the aft cabin fuse box, had it not got a very good but small extinguisher installed the boat would be a reef at the bottom of the Solent.

The issue with ours was the had fitted the wrong relay, insead of being continuously rated it was a differant sort, this caused it to over heat after about 30 mins of charging, and then a big fire in the fuse box.

I cannot understand how a fuse not tripping out could cause a fire, as a thruster is only used for 5/10/15 seconds at a time, and this is not enough time to over heat?

But we have not recieved a letter, so maybe F43's are not affected?
 
It's not the bow thruster your protecting, but the cable to it.
Back around 1990 there was a fire on a 365, why

there had been problems with a bit of equipment, were a flywheel diode failed short circuit, causing it's feed wire to get hot, but just below the trip of the breaker. At some point a gen set had been fitted, the 12 volt feed to the starter coming of the service bank, but no fuse fitted. Now sod's law comes into play, diode fails, cable overheats, but it is lying along side the 12 volt gen feed, which was low temp cable and it starts to melt. The two conductors now touch, and short out out the battery bank, they are now glowing red. All the cables now melt down as well as the power steering oil pipes, thus nice fire.

Hense fuse and breaker ratings were / are a concern.


Brian
 
Hi All

We had our visit to inspect the Bow Thruster today.
Great guy - knew his stuff.

The recall appears to have been instigated from the top (Brunswick).

The problem is that some of the "cartridge fuses" (if thats what you like to call them) fitted to bowthrusters have been installed with nuts and wahsers between the wired lugs.
They are worried that the washers might "break down/errode" very slightly resulting in a loose connection.
The solution is simple - remove the washers and bolt the lugs (that the wires are fitted to) together with nothing between.
Some boats have been fitted correctly - ours wasn't so it was simply changed on the spot.
We have a stern thruster which had a fuse installed identically.
This was done as well.
Digital photos were taken after the work had been completed - I assume so that they can prove it if anything goes wrong in the future.

Still, I'm happy and was able to "quiz" the guy further - I'll put up another thread on the interesting electrolysis discussion we had.

BTW
Sealine owners
Do you have a 12v system connected to a generator (factory fitted of course)?
We have.
Apparently, the battery doesn't get charged unless you actually run the generator.
The main 24v service battery charger isnt connected to the 12v systems.
This means that the radio, tv antenna and sockets drain the battery and unless you actually use the generator, it wont get charged.
This accounts for our boat having had a new generator battery fitted by the previous owner after only a couple of years.
On our boat, Sealine HAVE fitted a "link switch" to "jump start" the generator off the service battery if you find it flat.
I'm going to double check this wireing and if this is correct, I will install a permanent charger for the battery.
Thought this might be worth mentioning though
 
The gen question goes back to the Sealine 450, over the first few years we did a number of battery options, ending up running the gen set of the service bank. After a prop disapeared, it was found that there was a dc / ac earth link inside, causing an ac earth loop. This was corrected by a gen battery, but charged from the mains charger. To do this we built a 2 pole VSR, this switched battery live and neg to service batteries for charging. With shore on, the gen set was automatically isolated from the mains, if shore was unplugged then the relay droped out, and the service battery isolated from the genset.

Just check all your negs when you fit a charger.

Brian
 
Sealine UK have just OK'd the expense of someone to come up from Sealine Ginesta (near Barcelona) to the Costa Brava (150 miles) to sort out my bow thruster fuse. Seems like they are acting very professionally on this one. The boat was bought in the UK incidently.
 
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