Had a fire on board
 

Today I had an electrical fire on my 24 volt trolling motor plug and jack. I'm not sure what caused it but all of a sudden the plug and jack were on fire. I pulled the burning plug out of the jack and cut the plug off. At home I opened the front hatch and traced the wires and found a spot where the wire was chaffed and must have shorted out to ground. I rewired the jack and tomorrow will install a new plug. The 60 amp breaker tripped so hopefully my trolling motor will be ok. Boats can be a real pain to work on since there isn't much space to do things.

Fire on a boat is no joke! glad it turned out ok with minor damage.

Yup and I was a couple miles out from shore all alone and water temp is 51. Would have been bad if it caught the boat on fire and I had to swim for it.

Between your boat and Phil's camp we've had some "lucky" members here lately.

Glad it wasn't worse.

- jake

Glad you're safe. Be careful out there.

Thanks to our only 2 moderators still active. Came home today after a trip to town and started to mow my property. Got half done and decided to get more gas. Wouldn't start again. I need a new battery. Things come in 3s so what will tomorrow bring. Good news is my boat seems OK now with a brand new plug and jack on the 24v trolling motor system. I plan to fish in the morning then run the 30 miles to town and buy a new mower battery and pick up the stuff for an oil change. My Ferris is a great zero turn mower. The old mower took almost 5 hours and the Ferris mower cuts that down to 2 1/2.

Ferris is supposed to be a quality machine.

Does it have suspension?

- jake

Yes it is an amazing machine. It is smooth riding and it is now 5 years old and I have only changed oil, filter and lubed the grease zerts. I checked out lots of zero turns and Ferris seemed to be the best built of them all so I bought one. My old mower was a John Deere lawn and garden tractor and it lasted 17years. Great product but the Ferris zero turn is an awesome zero turn with a super ride due to the suspension.

I am glad that it wasn’t any worse than it was. I hope that you was able to remedy it and your trolling motor is okay. I don’t believe that I would want a fire on my boat while out on the water.

Yup fished today and caught about 50 pounds of big yellow perch and another 10 of huge white perch. I also landed unintended bi catch of 5 northern pike The trolling motor worked great.

I always had a concern about fire on my 38 foot Californian so I got a cardox system installed. Knowing that my engine room would fill with C02 if I had a fire was comforting. I carried 600 gallons of gasoline with 4 full tanks.

Smart move for sure. With 600 gallons of fuel you would never be able to get far enough away if the boat caught fire. People do realize fire can start in many ways. My plug must have had a bad or dirty connection and heat was produced and melted the insulation between the conductors where they went into the plug. The resulting dead short caused a flash and that's all it took.

Yep, doesn't take long from spark to fire.

That must have been an expensive boat to run OT.

I am glad to hear that your boat is working fine again for you CI..

WOW! OT you have a big boat. I would be hard pressed to fill the tank in that one. Something like that I would have use In saltwater and with my expertise they would be sending a search party out looking for me.. lol

Maybe you and Phil can team up on the " 3s " count. So we can count the " boat fire " , " the camp fire " and the " dead mower battery " all as the 3s count . Do that and " the team " is good to go for at least another year before the next set of 3 starts . LOL

It looks like CI has 2 things already. I have 2 things as well because around a month ago while I was making a right hand turn I got run into. That one caused me to replace my tires because 1 had a side wall ripped. That and along with inner and outer tie rods had to be replaced. A few small scratches down the passenger side to boot. I was driving my Jeep when it happened. My tires are 10 plies because of traveling the dirt roads going back and forth from camp. I lucked out on tires by hitting the last day of a sale. Buy 3 and get 1 free and the insurance paid for 1 tire so I actually only had to pay for 2 tires.. Now I wonder what number 3 will bring me..

They do say they come in 3s...
lol

Gasoline prices were a lot lower when I owned that boat so if I kept out of the secondaries the fuel consumption wasn't bad. It was nice knowing I had a lot more speed if one of the famous Chesapeake squalls popped up and wanted to get off the water. I like cruising at a leisurely pace, I was never one of those who threw off the lines then ran h*ll bent for leather to my destination just to tie up again. Right after I sold the Californian the gas prices started to go ballistic.

Most people I know who own boats in that class seldom take them out off the dock. Most live on them on weekends in the summer like a floating camp. They seem to have a pretty good time with the social scene though. Here on Lake Champlain it is a mix of both pleasure boats and sail boats.