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Message: <blockquote data-quote="sl1000794" data-source="post: 209843" data-attributes="member: 6974"><p>What I thought was going to be my worst day (or my last day on this earth) ended up not too bad in the end.  Four of us headed out for albacore tuna from Piller Point Harbor (Half Moon Bay) on a ssw heading.  Don't remember how far out the fish were (35 to 40 nm) but the seas were not bad and we were quartering down hill.  After an hour or so (out 18 - 19 nm) the cuddy cabin filled up with smoke.  I have a 22' Seaswirl Striper with a walk-around cuddy that I use for fishing, crabbing and diving.  I pulled back into neutral and shut the engine down.  I told one of the guys to get the life jackets out of the cabin and I called a May Day on channel 16 on the marine radio.  The guy tried to get the jackets, but the smoke was too much so it took a few seconds.  My May Day got an IMMEDIATE response from Coast Guard San Francisco with what was my situation, my boat and my location.  After I gave them that info (smoke in the cabin) they wanted to launch a helicopter. I said that we would look in the engine compartment (IO with a 351 ford engine.)  When we had our life jackets on and with fire extinguishers in hand we pulled the engine cover back and just more smoke.  I radioed back to the CG and told them that we didn't have a fire onboard.  They turned me over to the Harbor Master at Piller Point and the he sent out their crew boat to tow us in.  It was a 32' boat and pulled us in up on plane at 16 - 17 knots.  They wouldn't take any cash and it all ended well.  If we had had a fire and had to go into the 50° water the boat with almost all of it's 100 gallons of gas would have burned to the water line and then sunk with the swells filling it up.  It ended up that one of the back flow devise ss pins on the exhaust systems had corroded and the hard rubber baffle had wedged in the exhaust line blocking it and the hot exhaust had burned it enough to fill the engine compartment with smoke.  The scallops on the side of the boat that ventilate the engine compartment pushed the smoke into the cabin thru the passage ways on the side of the boat where wiring runs from the engine compartment to the helm.  Lots of other stories, but this one could have ended up the worst.</p></blockquote><p></p>

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