I was in the bilge doing some work, the connectors on the charger are not what I`d call very well done... I might have bumped them however....The wires to the port battery shorted and in about 3sec. the bilge was FILLED with thick white smoke to the point where I could not take a breath, I put my head over the rear bench to take a breath and put my shirt over my mouth.

All I could see thru the thick smoke was a BRIGHT RED glowing wire from the charger top the battery, I`ve never seen the entire length of a wire glow like that !! Lucky for me I did not have the battery cables on tight and was able to disconnect them very quickly. Any more wasted time trying to get them off would have surely resulted in something else catching fire.

The positive wire got so hot it burned thru my hatch hydraulic line and fluid started leaking all over and hatch started to close on top of me. Good thing my wife was around and able to grab a rope to tie it off.

If this happened underway or when I wasn`t around...man it would be goodbye boat, cars, garage.. probably house

So FUSES FUSES FUSES!! The charger was not hooked up with any inline fuses that could have prevented this.

Took a whole day before my lungs started to feel normal.
No insulation was left on the wire at all. All new chargers come fused on both terminals, I will be getting one on Monday.. The fuse in the charger did not pop.

Yea, someone decided years ago before I owned my 320 Baja that thye would wire thiongs with no fuses, I was coming back from the island in early May, dusk... storm rolling in... 4-6 footers.... about halfway back I lost one engine, smoke started pouring out from under gunnel, looked in there from under and saw the wire glowing, started to ignite, luckily my brother was quick on the extinguisher... hit it and then cut the wire, wanted to open hatch to check stuff real fast, couldnt open hatch!!! scared ****less I fired engines and the one that died fired also this time... somehow I got both engines back WFO all the way back to marina, had no clue what actually shorted or where, so I rewired everything, sucked bad....dont want to abandon a boat in 4-6 footers at dusk in early May when the water is still 45 degrees... I never been so scared before...

I've had this happen with cheap winches from china. Everything works great until you go to suck the line in and the motor won't shut off due to junk ass Chinese solenoids. Never saw a 4 gauge wire with all the insulation burned off so fast before! Scary as **** man!

damn near lost a brand new thunderbird many many years ago. Was driving down a 4 lane divided road when smoke just started to pour out from under the dash. Slamed on the brakes, popped the hood and yanked the battery wire off. Found out a hand saw i had put in the trunk got accrost a hot wire that wasn't fused at the battery.
Pissed off a bunch of people behind me - it was rush hour.

Damn lucky Dano...

thats some hot chit there dan,sure glad it didn,t burn the boat.