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Grrr, this should have been a catch report but instead it’s a salutary tale. A few weeks ago the water seal on the starboard D4-260 sea water pump was leaking and it was replaced, the bearings appeared to be ok so were left alone. Fast forward to the present, for a change I thought I’d try an early morning Bassing trip over some wrecks south of the Island. I was motoring down from Beaulieu at 6:30 full of hope on a wonderful flat and clear morning. Halfway to Lymington going at a reasonable lick a screech emitted from the rear of the boat ie from the engine bay. The timing was unfortunate as I’d just turned a water pump on and I assumed it must have been that, so I turned it off and waited, it did slowly die away maybe 15 seconds later (very odd) only to be replaced by the very loud engine alarm and a couple of red engine warning lights appearing. Cue engine’s off, sudden stop. Damn, I opened up the engine hatch to be greeted by smoke billowing out and a right old burning smell, mercifully no flames. Once the smoke had cleared I discovered with a sinking heart that the starboard side sea water pump had seized, the paint had blistered round one of the bearings, the smoke was from the engine belt running round the now stationary pump pulley wheel. Engine coolant was splattered around. As the engine water temp was still sky high I tried starting the engine to see if the pump would now work enough to cool the engine off, fortunately it must have unseized itself and the temperature rapidly returned to normal. Time to turn round and go home, no fishing for me , just expense. I pottered back using the port engine for drive and the starboard one just on tick over as the power steering runs off it keeping an ear out and watching the water temperature like a hawk. Back at the mooring on removing the pump, the damage appeared to be a seized bearing and a buckled pulley wheel due to the heat from the huge friction caused by the belt running over a third of the pulley only. Now I think what must have happened is that some of the sea water leaking from the seal a few weeks ago must have found in way into the ‘sealed’ bearing and mixed with the grease created some form of water, salt, grease slurry which resulted in the bearing failure although the bearing appeared good at the time of the seal change. So an expensive lesson, if the water seal leaks replace the adjacent bearings. Further compounded by mistaking the cause of the screech I failed to stop the engine promptly enough and trashed the pulley wheel. Yet more expense. . Steve