Fitting a kill cord to a Seagull.

[lw395]

Carry a waterproof mobile with Dylan Winter's number on speed dial. If you fall in, call him and he will appear to wrestle the Seagull to a stop for you.

I know someone who can prevent a seagull from running just by getting within 50 feet of it!
I do wonder how many people have had accidents with seagulls that would have been less serious with a kill cord, compared to how many people have pulled muscles or done their backs in trying to start them?

 

[Rum Run]

I have Seagulls set up so that with the tiller horizontal and the throttle lever fully in the slow position the engine just idles, but if the tiller is dropped the engine stops. Obviously the tiller pivot nut must be slack enough to drop under gravity.
I have not done it to my Featherweight yet, so maybe will have a go over the weekend. It's got to be the easiest way though. If it works!

 

[JumbleDuck]

I do wonder how many people have had accidents with seagulls that would have been less serious with a kill cord, compared to how many people have pulled muscles or done their backs in trying to start them?

As a child I learned (a) how to start the family Seagull and (b) how to light the family Tilley Lamp. As I was the only one who could do both of these things, or indeed either of them, I thereby made myself indispensable and so avoided being sold to gypsies.

 

[l'escargot]

I know someone who can prevent a seagull from running just by getting within 50 feet of it!
I do wonder how many people have had accidents with seagulls that would have been less serious with a kill cord, compared to how many people have pulled muscles or done their backs in trying to start them?

I've always been amazed at how few accidents there are involving that exposed spinning flywheel...

 

[yachtorion]

I've always been amazed at how few accidents there are involving that exposed spinning flywheel...

That was my first thought when I saw this thread. Surely a kill cord is unnecessary as the cord winding teeth on top of the flywheel will kill you on the way overboard. Quicker that way.

 

[JumbleDuck]

I've always been amazed at how few accidents there are involving that exposed spinning flywheel...

I once took a professor of theoretical physics sailing. When I asked him to adjust the height of the outboard - it was on a spring loaded parallelogram mount - only my anguished cry of "STOP" arrested his hands two inches above the spinning flywheel and about to push down on it.

 

[sarabande]

Technology marches on, amigos.

Mine is one of the last series ones made, and there are no moving parts to be seen, apart from the prop, which is why i started the thread.


See pic at top

 

[JumbleDuck]

Mine is one of the last series ones made, and there are no moving parts to be seen

Wuss.

 

[sarabande]

I live dangerously in other ways. Been shearing this morning. Naked oscillating razor sharp steel inches from my pinkies, and more importantly micro-inches from my rams balls.
View attachment 52329

 

[dartmoor]

I have Seagulls set up so that with the tiller horizontal and the throttle lever fully in the slow position the engine just idles, but if the tiller is dropped the engine stops. Obviously the tiller pivot nut must be slack enough to drop under gravity.
I have not done it to my Featherweight yet, so maybe will have a go over the weekend. It's got to be the easiest way though. If it works!

Exactly - a seagull should be set up so that throttling back completely cuts the engine. This is quick and easy to set up. The carbs on these things are so so crude and agricultural that all you have to do is adjust them to achieve zero throttle = fuel cut off so that engine stops.

 

[VicS]

a seagull should be set up so that throttling back completely cuts the engine. This is quick and easy to set up. The carbs on these things are so so crude and agricultural that all you have to do is adjust them to achieve zero throttle = fuel cut off so that engine stops.

and right PITA they are if adjusted like that.

Adjusted like Rum Run suggests is "just the ticket" and how I have mine set up, except that I dont have the tiller nut slack enough for it to fall under its own weight.

 

[DownWest]

I live dangerously in other ways. Been shearing this morning. Naked oscillating razor sharp steel inches from my pinkies, and more importantly micro-inches from my rams balls.
View attachment 52329

Did you shear the dog too?

 

[DownWest]

On the subject of Seagull accidents, some one in the US recounted how a young girl with long hair got it caught in the flywheel. Several adults in the boat rushed to help, but submerged the stern of the dinghy, which sank. She drowned.

 

[JumbleDuck]

and right PITA they are if adjusted like that.

I have just checked, and the original operating instructions which came with my beautiful and definitely-not-for-sale-on-eBay Forty Featherweight say:

TO STOP THE MOTOR, CLOSE THE THROTTLE FULLY (ANTI-CLOCKWISE) AND SHUT THE FUEL TAP

I have always assumed that it was the closing the throttle which stopped 'em - certainly that's how all the Seagulls I have ever owned have been set up.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I have just checked, and the original operating instructions which came with my beautiful and definitely-not-for-sale-on-eBay Forty Featherweight say:

TO STOP THE MOTOR, CLOSE THE THROTTLE FULLY (ANTI-CLOCKWISE) AND SHUT THE FUEL TAP

I have always assumed that it was the closing the throttle which stopped 'em - certainly that's how all the Seagulls I have ever owned have been set up.

ISTR (It's been a long time since I used a Seagull) that if they aren't set up like that, they run too rich and the plug gets fouled easily.

 

[VicS]

I have just checked, and the original operating instructions which came with my beautiful and definitely-not-for-sale-on-eBay Forty Featherweight say:

TO STOP THE MOTOR, CLOSE THE THROTTLE FULLY (ANTI-CLOCKWISE) AND SHUT THE FUEL TAP

I have always assumed that it was the closing the throttle which stopped 'em - certainly that's how all the Seagulls I have ever owned have been set up.

Yes the instructions for both of my Seagulls say the same and SOS says it should be possible to stop them by closing the throttle but
by setting it up as Rum Run suggests you can get it to idle when the throttle is closed and then stop when the tiller is lowered.

 

[l'escargot]

Technology marches on, amigos.

Mine is one of the last series ones made, and there are no moving parts to be seen, apart from the prop, which is why i started the thread.


See pic at top

And proportionately, very few were made. I can't remember the last time I saw one with the enclosed flywheel but I probably see one of the others at least once a week...

 

[RobbieW]

When I read the title I thought what a damn good idea, round their necks perhaps ... then I realised it was about outboards

 

[Daydream believer]

Personally i worry more about starting the b..y thing rather than stopping it
Have to admit though that after 55 years me & my 40+ are pretty much attached to each other any way.
Would miss it if i bought a proper outboard

 

[lw395]

Anyway, a switch which shorts the LT coil or pick up coil should do the job.