RTFM

Indiscretion, our Nordhavn trawler, has a Maretron onboard computer system which monitors most of the vital components aboard the vessel. From a display at the helm or master stateroom, I can review the wind speed outside, fuel, water and holding tank levels, state of the batteries, engine temperature, rudder angle, water depth, etc.

The system even has cell service and can text me when some parameter falls outside of normal, like this text I received at 2 am, indicating a low battery:

Let me say this first: I think it’s damn cool that my boat can send me a text. Second, I’m a heavy sleeper, and I didn’t receive this until I woke around 6 am. By the time I arrived at the boat 15 minutes later, the batteries were critically low.

I spent all morning checking shore power connections, contorting my body into various electrical cabinets and lockers, trying to figure out why the boat wasn’t connecting to power. I started the generator to charge up the batteries to buy time. I searched the internet and the Nordhavn owners group forums. I calculated how long I could run the generator before running low on fuel. I began to grow desperate.

Lisa called at noon.

“Did you figure out what’s wrong?” She asked. Her voice sounded perky and rested.

“Not yet. Did you need something?” I wanted coffee and answers — not more questions.

“Did you look in the owner’s manual? They have some pretty good instructions on the electrical system,” she offered.

“Yes,” I said. “Of course I looked at the manual. And the Nordhavn Owners Group. And I’ve searched everywhere on the internet. I don’t know what’s wrong. The damn charger’s probably broken,” I sighed.

“Do you want me to come down there and help you?” She asked.

“No.”

She could probably hear me banging a cabinet door shut, and sensed I wasn’t in a talkative mood. She let me go.

To be honest, I hadn’t looked in the owner’s manual. Who does that? Since I had run out of better ideas, I pulled out the thick binder from its resting place under the pilothouse settee. I flipped through the book until I found the electrical section, and my eyes were drawn to a bolded typeface section describing a set of A/C breakers in the master stateroom’s medicine cabinet. One of these breakers was tripped. I would never have found this hidden panel in my haphazard search. Once reset, everything came back to life.

I had a couple more late night texts from the boat over the following week, each easily resolved, but I still didn’t know what was tripping the system. It turned out I had plugged our winter space heater into a different outlet during a cabin cleaning session which had trouble handling the voltage and would intermittently trip the breaker. Once I changed outlets, the texts stopped coming.

Lesson: read the manual. And buy your first mate flowers.