Just bought a 24 volt Fortrex 80lb thrust for my boat. This weekend was fishing a tournament and kicked it up to 80-90% near the end of the day to move across a cove we were fishing and hit the other bank, when it went from running perfectly down to about 50% then just died in about 5 seconds. It was not a gradual change in loss of power, it jumped down in increments just like stated above. The batteries had a full charge on them at the start of the day, so batteries dying should not be a problem. What should I look at to start diagnosing the problem? Has this happened to anyone else? Thanks in advance.

WHATS YOUR VOLTAGE UP AT THE T/M CONNECTION? IS IT STILL DEAD AT TROLLING MOTOR SWITCH ETC?

Sounds like you had a power connection burn up or water entered the motor through the prop seal.

Finally got time today to test all of this. Had over 12.4-12.8 volts at each battery, and nothing at trolling motor. Read a lot about automatic breakers, so I figured that's what mine was, but it was a manual breaker so it didn't reset by itself. I reset it, and now have just over 25 volts at TM, and is working again. Should I be looking into replacing this breaker so it doesn't happen again in the future?

Gary, see above, I would love your input on this as well! Thanks!

I just had my batt "1" breaker trip for the first time in 15 years when on manual high going from one tree line to another, I changed from 74 lb to 82 lb new motor, boat sat in barn, I was asking what might have caused trip.....I don't see rat knowing on the visible t/m wires from the aft batt comp. to the deck hook up. haven't been out since. interested in feed back the 82lb on my champ 186 moves along fast on wide open