Mercury OB starter issues

[Pharcta2]

Hello all. I have a '99 Merc 75 ELPTO. I noticed last fall that it has a dead spot on the starter. No biggie, just pop the cowl, rotate the starter a bit, and off she goes. I stuck the repair on my "I'll get to it list"...
Took it out Saturday (9th time this year) and she started fine. Took off from the launch, and tried to trim.. No go. Turned the engine off to take a look - BAD IDEA. She wouldn't turn over anymore.

Anyway, I decided maybe it was my starting battery. When I went to put the cables onto one of my trolling motor batteries, the battery was extremely hot. I put the cables on, tries the t and t, it worked fine. Tried the starter, just a little whirring noise, and the deep cycle battery was smoking!

My rudimentary knowledge of outboard repair leads me to think this is most likely a dead short in my starter. Does this sound plausible?

Sorry for the long post!

Thanks for any and all advice in advance!

[Surface Tension]

Clean the battery posts and cables then make sure they are tight.

[Knotwood]

Do a compression test to make sure you have no leaks into the combustion chamber, they should all be within about 10% of each other. It could be a slight hydraulic lock keeping the engine from spinning over. Water or excessive gasoline mix will not compress like air, and can jam starters up. It sounds like the starter is fried, though. Anything that draws enough amps to get a battery smoking indicates some kind of severe load or a direct short.

[skyking]

Sounds kind of like what happened to me with my 75 Merc.....your stator may need to be replaced.

[fishermn]

This definitely sounds like a shorted stator. Be real careful in such a situation if you reconnect it again, that much load on a battery can cause an the battery to fail, sometimes catastrophically.

[Pharcta2]

Thanks for the advice - in a way, everyone was correct in their diagnosis. As it turns out, the boat took a lighning strike sometime between uses, which cause a whole bunch of electrical bug-a-boos.

Thanks for all the advice!