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After taking my lovely wife out to brunch for Mother's Day, she then informs me I need to take her out to dinner as well. Later, she then approaches me about taking a late afternoon boat cruise and taking our parents out to eat dinner via the boat. Given that it is the maiden voyage of the year and I knew traffic would be minimal, I was a little skeptical. But who am I kidding, she didn't have to twist my arm much. I quickly finished my chores and hooked up the boat. A quick systems check and we were off.

Boat fired right up and ran great all day long. My son tubed despite my wife's concern about not having grandchildren in the future (the water temp was in the low 60's). The parents were all grateful for the invite. All in all, it was a beautiful evening.

As I was pulling in the marina, my power steering was gone. I got her up to the ramp dock and raised the hatch (the marina was empty so I wasn't holding anyone up) and immediately found my serpantine belt laying in the bottom of the bilge. I started playing with it thinking I just needed to loosen a tensioner somewhere, reinstall and retighten, and be back ready for action. That's when I realized I had too much belt. I then noticed a spring laying in the bottom of the bilge. After further investigation, I found the tensioner pully was gone! The shaft snapped off at the base of the mounting bracket. I still haven't found the tensioner pully, but it has to be in the bilge somewhere.

Anyone have any experience with something like this? This is a first for me and I would like to make sure it never reoccurs. If that shaft had failed a few minutes earlier, the situation could have been real ugly.

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2005 FW Horizon 250
8.1L VP DP

Very happy you made it back to the dock without major issues!!! Can't say that has happened to me but I am going to inspect that pulley as soon as I get home thanks for the post hope you get to the bottom of it.

That belt also turns the water pump. Hope you didn't ride around too long with it off.

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1981 Columbia 8.7
2015 Yamaha FZR - 87mph - sold
2006 Yamaha GP1300R - sold
2003 Chaparral 215 SSI - sold
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2000 Four Winns H180 - sold
1976 O'day Daysailer II - sold
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