Mean Time Between Failure

As we said in an earlier post (see: Not Taking it In the Shorts, July 1, 2002), the only excuse for purchasing a new boat, versus one two or three years old, is for the warranty, and the hope that "everything works." Our hope was bolstered by the fact that Vancouver's Carver dealer, Blackfish Marine, worked with us diligently over three months and 88 hours of shakedown, before they – and we – were willing to sign off Carver's rather extensive new boat delivery checklist. Our boat, although first launched 2 years earlier, was sold as new; the original buyer – and his money – were apparently caught in the dot-com collapse, and the boat saw no use except sales demos until we discovered it.

Armed with the delivery credentials and an earned confidence in our vessel, three of us set out on July 24 from Victoria, BC for the 80-hour, 850nm trip to the Port of Redwood City – for a three-week outfitting stop – on San Francisco Bay. Other than an at-sea change of all diesel fuel filters, the trip was routine until about 50 miles out of San Francisco. The fuel filter change we rationalized to 60 hours of pounding, which would shake loose tank sediment accumulated during the two years the boat sat in sales limbo.

Somewhere north of the Golden Gate, however, a major clamp securing the port engine turbocharger gave way. The 450 horsepower, TAMD74P/A Volvo diesels put out a lot of soot, and we discovered our formerly pristine, white, engine room rapidly turning coal black, which you can see (look for the contrasting fingerprints) in the photo.

This early failure rose only to the level of an expensive inconvenience ($600 for professional cleaning), and merited a few choice words with Blackfish, whose checklist had included the turbo clamps. However, a few hours later, almost minutes after we reached our final destination, and while we were decompressing after the long trip, we detected the strong and unmistakable odor of an electrical fire. Smoke, sparks, and ugly sounds were streaming out of the Freedom 25 Battery Charger/Inverter on the electrical bulkhead in the engine room. It was fried.

Our dealer now 1000 miles in our wake, we worked directly with Carver for corrective action. The then Technical Service Rep, Kelly Kraning, got a warranty replacement unit to us within two days which I, being an electrical engineer, installed at once. Although the charger/inverter, connected to a nearly constant shore power feed, probably accumulated more actual operational hours since launch than any other system on the boat, we felt that such a failure this early in life was unwarranted for a name-brand component with a long manufacturing history. A mitigating factor could have been, however, carbon soot from the turbocharger clamp failure, 24 inches away. Perhaps the soot was sucked into the Freedom 25 by its cooling fan, and shorted out some connections. Either way, with a replacement in hand, and a now soot-free engine room once again, I figured this problem was solved.

I was wrong, but it took another two years before we discovered why the charger actually failed (see: The Harbor Queen, December 1, 2004).

In spite of their pathological resistance to working directly with an owner, Carver gets an A for their support on this.