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Johninaustin
Full Grown Flour Bluffian
Joined: 03 Jun 2007
Posts: 1118
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 Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2026 9:48 am Post subject: It gets exciting when the boat catches fire. |
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Went out last week, along the King Ranch shoreline. Just puttering along on the trolling motor..
Gee, where is all the smoke coming from? 
It appears the trolling motor plug shorted out and the circuit breaker did NOT trip so the plug and wire caught fire. Yanked the motor wire out be hand, still shorting under the deck. Wife is freaking out trying to find the fire extinguisher. (mounted in plan sight, she's complained about bruising her shin on it before.) Flipped open the battery storage and physically pulled the wires right off the battery to get it to stop. Put the burning plug out with the bait bucket. Not sure if I damaged the batteries, charger or trolling motor, very little fiberglass damage other than smoke stains. All the wires are gone. I'm going to have to make a special trip down to fix it all, I didn't have the time and just had to park it back in storage.
Lessons learned? Don't depend on the wife in an emergency and put a battery disconnect switch on the trolling motor wiring that I can access from the console. It would have been a long wade back to the truck, so good thing the starter battery is not part of that circuit.
On the bright side, we limited on trout using popping corks and DOA shrimp.  |
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Central Scrutinizer
Full Grown Flour Bluffian
Joined: 14 Jul 2009
Posts: 3585
Location: Flour Bluff
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| Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2026 12:28 pm Post subject: |
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Surrounded by water, and you're on fire!!!! You got yourself a story for the ages.
Glad everything came out O.K.
CS |
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Johninaustin
Full Grown Flour Bluffian
Joined: 03 Jun 2007
Posts: 1118
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| Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2026 7:40 am Post subject: |
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| Central Scrutinizer wrote: | Surrounded by water, and you're on fire!!!! You got yourself a story for the ages.
Glad everything came out O.K.
CS |
About that. Turns out that I had no way to get any of that water INTO the boat. Hence the sacrificing off all the live bait to gain access to the bait bucket.  |
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Rxfire
Member White Shrimper Boot Club
Joined: 16 Apr 2016
Posts: 623
Location: Flour Bluff
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| Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2026 11:14 am Post subject: |
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What voltage was the trolling motor? At what amperage draw would the circuit breaker kick off?
_________________
"In your guts you know he's nuts" |
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Johninaustin
Full Grown Flour Bluffian
Joined: 03 Jun 2007
Posts: 1118
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| Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2026 3:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Rxfire wrote: | | What voltage was the trolling motor? At what amperage draw would the circuit breaker kick off? |
74lb Minn Kota Maxxum.. I have no idea on the circuit breaker, it burned too. .
Not my installation, I bought the boat used. I did have to redo a hell of a lot of the Bubba Methbilly wiring in the console when I bought it. So honestly, I'm not surprised. |
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BayFly
Full Grown Flour Bluffian
Joined: 02 Sep 2014
Posts: 1729
Location: Austin/Flour Bluff
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| Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2026 10:38 am Post subject: |
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Regardless of why, it's great to learn no one was injured or killed and your boat basically remains fixable.  |
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