Bad day fishing

[rja]

Went out of Glasgow on Monday.Only caught 2 pics and about a dozen sheepshead.Fished from 52 ft to 62 tried everything l could think of.Headed back in around noon. Noticed smoke coming from the side by a rigger. Stopped to check and it burst into flames. Grabbed a fire extinguisher and emptied it to put the flames out. Started to smoke under the console so we put the peddle down in case the motor quit. Rough ride in but at least didn't have to swim from 5 miles out. Seams like there was a short in the rigger and the fuse didn't work.

 

[merc_man]

crappy to here. Glad you made it back in safely.

 

[fishlessam]

Happy you made it to shore,Iam surprised the fuse didn’t pop.,maybe you have too high amp fuse installed,try fuseable wire, they work well

 

[Tyler0420]

That’s scary. Glad you made it back safely

 

[Noth n yet]

What kind of rigger

 

[FlyingViking]

Yea! I would love to hear what the issue was! But that would have loaded my shorts in short time! Glad you got out safe!

 

[simps88]

Went out of Glasgow on Monday.Only caught 2 pics and about a dozen sheepshead.Fished from 52 ft to 62 tried everything l could think of.Headed back in around noon. Noticed smoke coming from the side by a rigger. Stopped to check and it burst into flames. Grabbed a fire extinguisher and emptied it to put the flames out. Started to smoke under the console so we put the peddle down in case the motor quit. Rough ride in but at least didn't have to swim from 5 miles out. Seams like there was a short in the rigger and the fuse didn't work.

That’s some scary but I know exactly what was going through your head. Had the same type of situation 4 years ago but it was an engine fire that couldn’t be controlled. We had to bail out of the boat about 3 miles straight out at Glasgow. It gets real scary when you hit the water because you think “now what”. We were in the water for about 15 mins before the first boat arrived to help. Could have turned out a lot worse than just losing everything. Fire is a scary thing on the water. Glad you had a happy ending with your day minus some wiring

 

[jakerboy]

Our down riggers are installed for that are plugged in at the back of the boat and are on a 30 amp inline fuse . They are only plugged in when they’re needed.

 

[DST]

Most downriggers have a 8 or 10 amp circuit breaker wired in-between the switch and motor. A 15 amp fuse is more than enough. The other thing to have a look at is the wire gauge size. That is how the wire insulation catches fire. RULES OF THUMB. Many techs will repeat these rules of thumb and rely on them in all circumstances: “Twelve-gauge wire is good for 20 amps, 10-gauge wire is good for 30 amps.

 

[Tyee]

Personally I put a circuit breaker at the battery for each rigger even though all riggers have one on them. Stops the wire from melting in the event of a bad short or rub through.

 

[anonymoose]

I don't run electric riggers but I had an issue recently and EVERYTHING on the boat got nuked. Fried two fish finders (I think one of them was the cause of the issue but I still don't know), blew all the lights (it was at night) and all the gauges. It popped a couple of fuses but the fuses didn't protect anything. Luckily no damage to tilt/trim but everything else was toast.

@rja I'm glad you made good use of your fire extinguisher and made it back to shore safely!