How many of us have still got a Seagull ?

Got a Seagull?

  • Total voters
    148
I would like one, but have never worked out which one to look out for!
Perhaps one of you 'expert' owners can enlighten me / help me avoid buying a dog
I have form for buying then researching :-)

- As an alternative to our short shaft Honda 2.3hp
- To be used on a 2.2m and 2.9m hardtail inflatable
- Not a rare / expensive collectors edition!

Some tinkering / rebuilding is fine. Spending £500,000 restoring it probably isn't!
 
fastjedi said:
I would like one, but have never worked out which one to look out for!
Perhaps one of you 'expert' owners can enlighten me / help me avoid buying a dog
I have form for buying then researching :-)

- As an alternative to our short shaft Honda 2.3hp
- To be used on a 2.2m and 2.9m hardtail inflatable
- Not a rare / expensive collectors edition!

Some tinkering / rebuilding is fine. Spending £500,000 restoring it probably isn't!
Click to expand...

My good friend Engines Dunn reastores these in a sliding scale of expenditure. One guy recently paid over £700 just for a perfectly refubished fuel tank!!!



Here is the website for Saving-Our-Seagulls.....

http://www.saving-old-seagulls.co.uk/faq/faq.htm
 
Just in case you thought I was joshing about starting and running 'em immersed up to their blocks. This picture shows part of a trial to see just how adverse the conditions could be during starting. And this one doesn't have any 'anti back-pressure holes' either ....

Time for British Seagull to re-write the manual methinks ?
 
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Electrosys,

Have you considered turning the motor round, putting the wheelie bin in the sea & getting in it? Circumnav the UK in a wheelie bin! Could this be the solution to Dylan's problems with the slug? To all those who want a low cost lightweight tender?
 
I have refused to vote.

When one looks back to AD33, when the British Seagull was launched, and the Union of Galley Slaves, Solent Division I think, demonstrated and were crushed by the evil Seagull Organisation.
 
As ragged arsed 14 year olds we did fishing trips, with a pre-war longshaft, I think it was a 105?? It had the round brass tank and a two bladed prop. If temperamental you had to go up in the bow and pretend to talk about anything other than starting it, then rush it when it looked away and had forgotten the start cord ready to go. Passengers had to flatten themselves during the process to avoid the knotted end.
 
Searush said:
Electrosys,

Have you considered turning the motor round, putting the wheelie bin in the sea & getting in it? Circumnav the UK in a wheelie bin! Could this be the solution to Dylan's problems with the slug? To all those who want a low cost lightweight tender?
Click to expand...
Nahh - leave it as it is - just fill the gearbox with fish oil, run it on a 10:1 ethanol/ olive oil mix - and sell it to the Afghan Army as a military-sized soup-blender.

Hmmm - I feel a patent coming on ....
 
I bought a boat that had a Seagull Inboard.. One trip with that and back to the slings for a quick haul out and some hasty aperture filling laminating overnight. Talk about reverse engineering ..

Shamed to say , same boat ( Corribee) then sported a Forty on the back for a year that just happened to come with it, so I did quite a lot of sailing that year...

Have to say it actually started and ran like a dream, a very small, wet and underpowered dream, clutch and alternator too, but sitting on the stern to keep the prop in the water, well, felt a total pillock really. And every time a wave slapped the stern, the plug got wet and sputtered.
Gone and not quite forgotten
 
Mine wouldn't run properly in a wheelie bin!


DSCF0419.jpg
 
I've got 2, both 40+'s, 1 with recoil start, 1 with a rope, both start first pull.
I need a longshaft as a back up for the boat. If I but a 4 stroke Mercury / Yamajap thingy I'll need to get it insured. If I get a Silver Century, no need!
 
Got nine or ten in the workshop all of the Minus/Featherweight/Plus type including a 1951 "Little Model Forty" and a similar aged Plus with a very small round (not oval) tank. Always wanted one of the bronze Navy spec'd WW2 102's.

If buying, look for no rust on the legs, a brass tank - oval shaped (the ones with a lip are steel and rust). The silver coloured tops one are Villiers ignition, perhaps more difficult to source spares, the gold tops later & perhaps more reliable ignition. Best advice is talk to John of Saving Old Seagulls. There's an article about him on the Classic Boat website.
 
Hi, If anyone is wondering about the very durable paint on the fuel tanks of Seagull outboards it is because they were made by the John Marston company who were famous for pre war Sunbeam motorcycles.Sumbeam's were noted for their fine and durable paintwork,a rubberised stove enamel. Seagulls gave me no trouble when I owned them, but as a motorcycle mechanic that is perhaps not surprising. Love 'em or hate 'em they got a lot of sailors around in their time.
 
VicS - I'm not surprised it wouldn't run in the wheelie bin. You should try again with a British Seagull Weed-Free propellor...

I have one of the later ones with Forward/Neutral/Reverse on my Pageant, it pushes the boat along nicely at 3 knots.

I also have quite a lot of the other ones, from a 1936 Model OJ complete in a its box with spares and correspondence, wartime SD models, Little Model Forties and a selection of Centuries, Forties and the like. For the Anoraks, the Marston connection stopped before the war. The first few years Seagulls were made by Marston's at Sunbeamland (they were a Sunbeam product) but the parent company sold out in the late thirties to the two directors who turned the brand into a post war success.

I'm astonished that anyone on the SOS site ever said that 70% won't ever run again - I'm one of the moderators on that site and we reckon that virtually all of them can be brought back to life. Very rarely is one deemed irrevocably dead.
 
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yellowspinnaker said:
I'm astonished that anyone on the SOS site ever said that 70% won't ever run again [...]
Click to expand...
I read that post as being that "someone on the SOS forum said that there was a 70% chance of that particular engine never running again ....".
But - such negativity is not exactly typical of that forum, so dunno where that percentage figure originated from ?

I've even chipped out 'sand' (the remains of well-dried emulsified oil) from gearboxes and got 'em to run again. INDESTRUCTIBLE is the word which comes to mind. Except for cracked cylinders - seen a couple of those - and a few bad steel tanks - otherwise, I'd say that 95% of Seagulls can be salvaged.
 
Well I have two, a featherweight in as new condition only used twice that belonged to my father which gets polished occasionally and a 1964 5hp. The 5hp I was given about fourteen years ago as a non runner and as this winter was **** for boat fixing I did a total rebuild once I had found my whit spanners. Total cost to rebuild, one tin of black paint and some sae 140 oil. Both run like a dream, next winter I fancy rebuilding a J.A.P. or British Anzani.
 
OK, does anyone remember the Aurora Aquajet? It had a downward facing prop that sucked up water and blew it out of a nozzle. It was spectacularly useless.
 
electrosys said:
I read that post as being that "someone on the SOS forum said that there was a 70% chance of that particular engine never running again ....".
But - such negativity is not exactly typical of that forum, so dunno where that percentage figure originated from ?

I've even chipped out 'sand' (the remains of well-dried emulsified oil) from gearboxes and got 'em to run again. INDESTRUCTIBLE is the word which comes to mind. Except for cracked cylinders - seen a couple of those - and a few bad steel tanks - otherwise, I'd say that 95% of Seagulls can be salvaged.
Click to expand...

Yes, agreed they can be salvaged.
But when they don't want to go, they are stubborn like donkeys and will not go.
I will never forget, I once very nearly lost my life because a Seagull conked out and would not start again.
This was in Bideford.
I was being swept towards the whirlpool at the entrance.
SWMBO yelled and screamed.
The lifeboat came out and snatched me to safety.
They said another 3 minutes and I wouild have been a goner, two or three people used to drown there every year, so they said.
So Seagulls of the mechanical kind, no thanks.:eek:
 
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