Yup, ive got smoke puffs but not often-appareantaly ive got a boat that smokes! 

Hi Michael , thanks for getting rid of that awful avatar pic , unless that really is a pic of you .Then you are one handsome man . All right just joking around I'm sorry.  OK it sounds to me that you have steam not smoke . And that means you are overheating at least somewhat .  I overheat now and then for reasons like, once I used the wrong tubing on my raw water pump (needed to use heavy duty tubing) , raw water pump needs rebuild , heat exchanger needs boil out , mixing elbow plugged up , raw water strainer needs cleaning , and last but not least my raw water thru hull gets salted up  and is plugged solid . The last time my thru hull got plugged partially . I could run for about half an hour and then I would start to steam (but just a little) and I still had water coming out the exhaust. I hope some of this helps . Sail On Bro. !







    

The puff of smoke is exhaust that does not have the water cooling going through the exhaust line.  This is part of the siphon break system that I put on all of the boats I have built, but Westsail did not. 

There should be a small dribble of water coming through the hose going into the cockpit drain when the engine has proper water cooling running through it.  When first starting an engine, there will be the puff of smoke before the cooling water has filled up the system.  If it still puffs smoke after about 30 seconds, it means that you forgot to open the seawater seacock, or that you have some other problem not letting water go through the cooling system.  Shut the engine down immediately, and find out what the problem is.

Check out Page F-8 of my Westsail Service Manual to understand the system.  The manual is available on line now at www.westsailparts.com.