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I learned about boating from that... By Greg Howell The Gas Vapor Detector. On every boat we have restored we have installed a gas vapor detector as precautionary measure for safety. We placed it in our first boat with the understanding that it would not affect judging since it can be classified as safety equipment. We took a little flak from some members as to why we bothered placing the unit in our boat, but never the less we used it whenever we used the boat. When we bought our cruiser there was no question as to whether or not we would install one since we had 2 engines and 150 gallons on gasoline in the engine compartment area. All worked well, except for the occasional accidental alarm when you were idling the boat with the wind at your back. Evidently some of the exhaust fumes were blown back in through the rear vents and this was enough to set the alarm off. It was simply corrected by either speeding up or turning the boat slightly. The day when the detector paid for itself was when we were out for an early evening cruise. We had motored around the West River area and were idling through the channel towards the end of the no-wake zone when the alarm went off. The wind was at our backs so I reached over and hit the Mute button. Ten seconds later the alarm sounded again. This time I hit the mute and turned the boat towards the wind. Ten seconds later the alarm sounded again so I turned toward the channel and started to bring the boat up on a plane. At this time the alarm sounded and kept getting louder without allowing me to mute it. I idled both engines back, placed them in neutral and opened the center floorboard between the engines. What I saw took my breath away. The fuel pump on the port engine was spraying a stream of fuel over the batteries, and onto the starboard engine. I immediately shut down the Port engine and opened both engine hatches. We carried about 30 gallons of fresh water in the tank on the cruiser, all 30 gallons was dumped on the areas that were sprayed with gasoline. We also had 3 gallons of drinking water onboard, that to was dumped in the bilge along with 2 bottles of bilge cleaner we hand aboard. I never shut the starboard engine down thinking that there was a greater chance of spark in firing up an engine rather than leaving it running. I got down between the engines and saw that the cast top piece of the fuel pump had cracked and this is where the leak was coming from. The fuel pump was only a month old! We limped back to our marina on one engine and the next day I replaced the fuel pump. Both my wife and I hate to think of what might have happened had we not installed the vapor detector.
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