Strange Smell .....

[exfinnsailor]

Went sailing in Gibralta in June and had a week on a Jenneau 40 .. Great way to spend a week but we had a strange smell onboard .. Thought the engine was getting extra hot so changed the impeller .. Changed the fan belt as well .. Still a strange smell .. Had all the covers off the engine whilst on the move with the engine .. Still no luck .. Anyway on the skippers last night ( Could have been his last ) the smoke alarm in his cabin went off about 3am so he gets up takes it apart and goes back to sleep .. The other aft cabin alarm goes off so Vera takes the battery out and leaves it on the table with the other one and goes back to sleep .. We discovered the fault the following day .. No water in some of the cells in the batteries .. Skipper was sleeping on top of them . Not supprised he nearly lost his voice .. We spent ages trying to find the fault lucky it did not catch fire .. Charging circuit sees flatish battery and keeps charging all night ..... /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[Danny Jo]

[ QUOTE ]
the smoke alarm in his cabin went off about 3am so he gets up takes it apart and goes back to sleep .. The other aft cabin alarm goes off so Vera takes the battery out and leaves it on the table with the other one and goes back to sleep

[/ QUOTE ] I may have fallen for a wind-up, but it seems more likely that this is a serious contender for the Darwin "almost-made-it-to-extinction" runner-up award.

 

[Csail]

what did it smell of?

 

[Largslout]

One false alarm perhaps but for two to go off....? Begs the question why have warning systems if you then ignore them?!

 

[Amari]

Similar thing happened to us this spring, on returning to commission boat after being on hard standing overwinter. As far as I know batteries not topped up over winter, just left in situ. (Turkish guardian's English not too good). Guardian attached shore power and therefore activated smart charger on day of our arrival. Terrible smell, acid like, set off butane gas alarm (no smoke alarm on board). Took me some time to twig that 2 of 4 batteries boiling. ?smell was H2S or SO2.
Have not made a diagnosis, batteries replaced. Can't decide whether to leave solar panel on over next winter or insist all 4 batteries are removed and charged monthly

 

[Shannoner]

[ QUOTE ]
the smoke alarm in his cabin went off about 3am so he gets up takes it apart and goes back to sleep .. The other aft cabin alarm goes off so Vera takes the battery out and leaves it on the table with the other one and goes back to sleep ..

[/ QUOTE ]

Ranks up there with wrapping tin foil around a blown fuse and plugging it back in.
By the way, was it a "rotten egg" smell? There was a guy with a faulty battery charger tied up beside me once, his charger wouldn't switch off when batts were charged so it continued to cook them, took a while to figure out where the smell was coming from, the poor dog got the blame, until we traced it to the batts /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif