Boat Alarms

[klanno]

Greetings to all....owned my 0s385 for 6 + years of fishing fun.

When commissioning boat this season, I get an alarm (5 sec horn blowing) when starting engines. No alarms from Yamaha engines displayed. Seems to be some electrical issue I've never had before.

Any thoughts to resolve?

[Kismet]

Good morning:

The high water alarm sounds for 4-5 seconds when testing and when initial connection to the engine battery bank on the port side.

I would suggest testing the high water alarm with the batteries connected and the main battery switches in the OFF position.

To test the alarm, use a water soaked rag and wrap it around the switch which is mounted on the secondary bilge pump in the aft bilge. The wet rag will cause the contacts on the water-witch to close and sound the boat horn.

If the horn doesn't sound then I would suspect the switch or more likely the battery connections in the engine bank.
If the horn does sound, then I would check the voltage at the batter bank. Low voltage in one or more of the batteries could cause enough of a voltage drop when you start the engines that would fool the water-witch into thinking you disconnected and reconnected the batteries.

There is also a high-water alarm test switch on the AC Distribution Panel that has a test button. That test switch doesn't sound the horn but has a small micro speaker that beeps if the HW Switch is behaving properly.

Let us know how your test goes.

Len