Weekend to remember

[Redman54]

We left our dock at 0630 Saturday morning with high hopes of bringing home some Red Snapper. Seas were a bit snotty but nothing we haven't encountered before. We pull up to our drop where we have caught several before the season and mark a ton of activity, so we start fishing. Short BSB and Triggers are coming up on every drop. 15 minutes later, everything on my boat dies! No power, dead in the water. Drop anchor and go to trouble shooting. I'm checking everything I can think of and nothing is working. I disconnect my batteries, selector switch and common ground, clean all the terminals then reinstall making sure everything is tight. I get power back to my electronics but still no crank/start on my engine. By this time, there are several boats in the area and see I'm having an issue. One by one each of them come by to check on us, letting us know they would stay around until we get the issue resolved. So I keep tracing wires looking for anything out of the ordinary. While I'm troubleshooting what could be wrong, my kids keep on fishing. We had drifted off our spot but were still marking some activity. As I was waist deep down in my bilge I hear my youngest son saying he's hooked a monster. I come up to see his rod bent over and line peeling off. He tightens down on his drag a little and after a short time is able to start gaining some line. He's in it to win it and fights this unknown sea monster for 30 minutes until he was slap wore out. He hands the rod off to me and I fight it for an additional 10 or so minutes until we are able to see a color. I then hand it back over to him to bring it to the boat. After a long exhausting battle we are finally able to get his prize to the side of the boat. After admiring this beautiful fish and giving it some time to recover, and naturally some pictures, I cut it loose and we all watch as she swims back down. We ended up with 3 keeper BSB and a Sea Tow. I can say this was a trip to remember for us all. I would also like to add how amazed I was at all the assistance we received after calling sea tow and giving our location. Throughout the day, boat after boat would make their way over to us and offer whatever assistance they could. I'm am truly grateful to every Captain that came by and offered us help.

 

[fuelman1]

Sea Tow is worth every penny. You don't need it until you really need it.

 

[Hooked On Quack]

Rule of the sea, if someone needs assistance they are required by law to offer. Glad things turned out good for you . Curious as to what your problem was ???

 

[Redman54]

Sea Tow is worth every penny. You don't need it until you really need it.

True statement

Rule of the sea, if someone needs assistance they are required by law to offer. Glad things turned out good for you . Curious as to what your problem was ???

I still do not know the culprit but it's definitely a wiring issue somewhere. Got it back to our dock, put a battery charger on both batteries and let them charge all night. Sunday morning, both batteries charged to full and still nothing to the engine. All electronics would power on and work fine. I towed it to the marina, pulled it out and parked it at our coast house. I had a utility trailer with me so I couldn't bring it home, but plan on going to get it this weekend and bring it back home to work on it. When I figure it out, I'll update. We spent the entire week of the 4th down there and it never had a hick-up. In fact, we've had it for 6 yrs and never had any issues other than routine maintenance.

 

[doomtrpr_z71]

Seatow seems like a waste of money when you are putting in your credit card info, but when real life happens it makes it worth every dime. I'm glad y'all got back and had a few fish at least.

 

[fuelman1]

True statement



I still do not know the culprit but it's definitely a wiring issue somewhere. Got it back to our dock, put a battery charger on both batteries and let them charge all night. Sunday morning, both batteries charged to full and still nothing to the engine. All electronics would power on and work fine. I towed it to the marina, pulled it out and parked it at our coast house. I had a utility trailer with me so I couldn't bring it home, but plan on going to get it this weekend and bring it back home to work on it. When I figure it out, I'll update. We spent the entire week of the 4th down there and it never had a hick-up. In fact, we've had it for 6 yrs and never had any issues other than routine maintenance.

I had something similar. My electronics worked but the starting circuit would blow the fuse when you tried starting. I managed to use a set of jumper cables and jump straight to the starter. I got home on my own power. I discovered a loose wire in the motor harness was shorting. I fixed it and it has been good ever since. That's a horrible feeling when you turn the key and nothing happens.

 

[Rabun]

I had something similar. My electronics worked but the starting circuit would blow the fuse when you tried starting. I managed to use a set of jumper cables and jump straight to the starter. I got home on my own power. I discovered a loose wire in the motor harness was shorting. I fixed it and it has been good ever since. That's a horrible feeling when you turn the key and nothing happens.

That's a valuable trick to know. I'm going to pull the cowling off my motor and make sure I know how to o that

 

[Cumberlandjg]

Just curious were you flagging down other boats to make them aware of your situation or how did they know? They just saw that you were working on the boat? Also what type of fish was that?

 

[Redman54]

Just curious were you flagging down other boats to make them aware of your situation or how did they know? They just saw that you were working on the boat? Also what type of fish was that?

The first few saw me working on the boat, I flagged one down and the rest came by throughout the day after giving my location to Sea Tow.

Nurse Shark