Nick,

Not sure if I understand where you see the water leak. You note it to be at the cutlass beaing near the transmission?

The most likely first failure would be warped head or blown head gasket.

As far as pain killers, there is likely to be some pain but, it may not all be yours. Insurance, Hull coverage does cover stupidity and errors on our part. This can be driving into a docks, buoys, another boat or failing to turn the water on before starting the engine.

On the later, I make it a habit of hanging my ignition key from the seacock for the engine. I put it there when I put the boat away and retrive it and turn the water on when I get underway. I do not turn the seacock off without putting the key there. This makes it fairly fool proof, something that benifits me more than some.

I purchased a core engine to overhaul on my last boat from a fellow that used a rag with silocone spray on it to check the engine oil. Oil does not stick to silicone and he overserviced the engine with oil. It ran away on start, his insurance company bought him a new Yanmar, I bought his old one and overhauled it.

If you make the claim, the insurance company may prorate the cost of repair based on hours used, though they will likely cover the bulk of the repair cost if you elect to claim it.

Nick,

If your alarm sounded soon after the engine overheat occurred and you shut it done immediately, I would be amazed if you have any damage at all except for the raw water impeller. your talk about leakage of the coolant/water is not clear enough to comment at this point.

I agree with the above post. I have the same exact boat you have. Last month I motored out to sail and then motored back toward my marina all the while with the sea cock in the closed position. I didn't realize it until I noticed the lack of water coming from the exhaust and the muffler making a strange sound. The heat gauge was pegged all the way to HOT. I let the engine cool, opened the sea cock and fired up the engine. I am still surprised the engine still runs like a top. I now put the ignition key next to the sea cock when I am finished for the day.

I suggest you check your hoses. It sounds like the hose from the reservoir to the heat exchanger may have cracked or slid off. The heat from the hot engine might have caused the hose to fail. If the hoses are old I'd bet the hose was just about ready to go anyway. It's worth a look...

Chris and Duane's points are valid, I may have jumped the gun based on coolant loss. Agreed you need to identify where coolant loss source. If you are seeing coolant on or near transmission it could be a failed heat exchanger hose as it is the most aft coolant line.

Toasted my engine with a coolant loss, my stupidity was not correcting a failed temp gauge, my engine did not have a working temp alarm either.
Hopefully you got the engine shut down quick enough as Chris and Duane suggest.

Don't feel too bad. A lot of us have been there done that. My scare resulted in no damage, thankfully. I went ahead and installed a new over temp alarm and a raw water flow alarm. So far I am happy for having done that. I also keep the key close to the seacock and never move it without opening the valve.

I was also like to add that you might want to check y our impeller to see if it was damaged. A friend of mine dialed to do the same thing and his impeller was shot and he had to replace it because the old one was blown apart.

I'd like to second the above post. I made the same bone head mistake two months ago. Went from slip to fuel dock and back with raw water intake closed. Shut down immediately on audio alarm. But I DIDN'T CHECK THE RAW WATER IMPELLER. After cool down and restart engine ran fine. Went out sailing the next day and made sure the raw water valve was open and all went well, until we dropped sails and turned for home. The overheat alarm came on again. I quickly shut down and dove below to be sure I hadn't made the same mistake. I hadn't. Quickly pulled the intake hose to confirm that the intake wasn't blocked. It wasn't. So had to call the Towboat US guy.
Back in the slip, I pulled the impeller and it was a half melted, raggedy piece of rubber. new impeller fixed it all but still, my engine seems fine.
I'm moving the ignition key now to the intake valve lever.
Thanks for that hint.

I had to go back and check my post to be sure I mentioned damage to the raw water impeller (and I did). If it runs dry for even 20 seconds, I would replace it. There is a lot of friction between the rubber vanes and the housing and without water, that impeller will suffer quickly.

That is a great outcome Nick, glad to here it.

Inspecting all hoses frequently is in order for all of us. I fricasied my engine when a heat exchanger line blew, these run under the floor boards and are easy to overlook.

I'll second that Nick! I am glad to hear that all ended well with you. If the truth be known, we have all made stupid mistakes. As long as we learn from them and do our visual checks from time-to-time we are all much better off. It's the ole ounce of prevention..... I need to replace those lines that run under the sole of the galley on my boat - good tip! Thanks.

I just replaced those hoses to the water heater a couple weeks ago. They had a couple cracks I could see at the engine end, but were [I]much worse[/I] where they were out of sight under the sole in galley. Sure glad I replaced them when I did.