Is no news good news? The ELCI breaker hasn’t tripped in over a year. I have done exactly nothing that may have affected it. Since the beginning, I have assumed it was something on my boat. The Internet supports that, as virtually every resource out there has some variation of “It’s not shore power… it’s your boat.” The problem has always been intermittent and non-reproducible. Whether switching from shore to generator power, cycling the battery charger, or any of the other possible trip conditions, we could never make it happen. Now, after years of troubleshooting, examination by ABYC electricians, replacing the breakers themselves, and conversations with other boat owners, I’m pretty sure it’s actually not my boat.
Some observations:
First: The breaker tends to trip when the dock power has a brown out or power surge. We’ve had some weather this year, and several power surges, blackouts, and brownouts. In one case, our home lights flickered and we immediately got a shore power notification. When I went down to the marina, the power was on, but the breaker had tripped. Multiple people confirmed the flicker.
Second: My neighbor has a Sabre and has had very similar issues. Sometimes, both of our breakers trip at the same time. I run into him on the dock when we’re both down checking on an outage notification.
Third: My old marina neighbor left. They had a poorly-maintained boat and their power cable often fell in the water, right where the junction plug was. (That is, they joined two cables together and the plug where they were joined often got kicked in the water). Our unexplained breaker trips stopped when they moved out.
Four: I spoke to the Sabre builder at the boat show, and they said the issues I was having (unexplained, intermittent ELCI nuisance trips) are an open secret across the industry, and a huge headache for builders trying to support their customers. Everything I described was familiar to them.
I think, because so many people have old boats with sketchy electrical systems, that the default answer of “it’s not shore power” is often correct. But, this is masking the other truth, repeated by electricians and builders, that ELCI breakers are hyper-sensitive and nuisance trip a couple times a year in normal environments.
I have experienced the problem in multiple marinas, but all of these marinas were known as “hot”. Shilshole, where we were moored for years, was well known to the divers around there as eating through zincs like crazy. My old neighbor in our current marina apparently got in a fight with a diver when (I’m hearing this third hand) the diver got shocked while servicing their boat.
So, here’s what I think is happening.
- ELCI breakers are super sensitive.
- Utility power surges or brownouts trip them
- Hot boats leaking current in the marina can trip them
I can’t think of any other explanation.
My problem went away on its own, but it was correlated with a neighbor moving out. Any recent trips I’ve seen have all been associated with utility power issues. More supporting evidence: since my neighbor moved out, my zincs all last over a year. I was changing them 2-3 times a year before (same as when I was in Shilshole).
I’m still not sure what I am going to do about it. Am I going to store food in the fridge? But, I’m calling this one resolved.
