Pre-Purchase Inspections
January/February 2009 - Control Cable

During an inspection of a 41-foot twin screw vessel I encountered this insidiously dangerous scenario. The assembly shown here secures the throttle cable to the engine block. The cable mount is designed to secure one or two cables. It incorporates twin locking arms that, when a single cable is used, securely and redundantly ensure that the cable cannot separate from the engine. Only one of the locking arms is closed, the other remains open. If the single remaining arm opened, I’ve seen this occur when a mechanic’s jacket was dragged across the engine and when a tool bag was placed on the cable support, the cable would separate from the locking assembly and, without warning, the engine’s rpms could either drop to idle speed, or race to full throttle. If this were to occur while maneuvering in close quarters or while crossing the path of another vessel the results could be catastrophic. Whether one or two cables are secured in this mount, and even if one cable is double-locked, the locking arms should be retained with seizing wire as an additional guarantee against the above-described scenario.

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