Had a friend who purchased a used boat he asked me to do some minor repairs to it, on this boat The tilt system moved the whole v8 engine up and down to angle the out drive for trim. Now the previous owner had run the positive cable under the tilt mechanism to connect to the aux. battery, while I was working on the engine I had to lower the engine to the full down position , we went out the next morning the motor started up fine But then as we were leaving the channel for open water the cable had shorted out .
thick white smoke came bellowing from the engine compartment and with in minutes the lake patrol came to offer assistance while I was under the engine box cutting the cable to the aux battery My buddy Jim was trying to keep the harbor patrol from towing us in assuring them that every thing would be ok, mean while my cell phone started to ring, another buddy had seen the smoke and with his binoculars recognized us and was about to call for additional help . being some very determined fishermen we were not going to let a little electrical fire short out the weekend . So after switching some cables we started up the motor and headed out to fish I can still see the puzzled looks on the patrol officers faces when we did not head back to shore. it pays to have a few tools onboard and some black tape !