Wansworth
Well-Known Member
Thank to Tranona…….but wether It will run again is in the lap of the gods
Ledgendary Seagull
- Thread starter Wansworth
- Start date
DownWest
Well-Known Member
Well, local friend was gifted a Heron dinghy with a 40 plus. Not run for many years. He wanted to learn a bit of mechanics, so I only gave him bits of advice about what to do, rather than take over. It started on the second pull and really made his day.
Wansworth
Well-Known Member
Hope springs eternal
Chiara’s slave
Well-Known Member
I hate to decry such a marvellous part of boating history, but all that oil they spit out, should they not be just for historical purposes, high days and holidays? I know electric outboards have no soul, and require some new thinking, but at least they’re not killing fluffy baby egrets. Our electric has a dedicated solar panel, the battery sits down below, on charge all the time it’s not in use. It will run for an hour at full throttle, We rarely run at full throttle, mostly at just 150w or so. That gives many hours of nearly silent tootling about at 3kn or so. I love a 2 stroke more than the normal man, but looking at the oil film they leave behind, I confine my addiction to a few Sundays a year, and to a motorcycle.
Wansworth
Well-Known Member
My seagull weighs a great deal so I expect it will stay in the basement…….an anomaly discovered by future archiologists
14K478
Well-Known Member
Yes it is. I have a 1946 one which is an un-started project.
Wansworth
Well-Known Member
This one 1946. 1956
Chiara’s slave
Well-Known Member
I think you should make it really shiny and clamp it on to the pushpit of that boat you’re going to buy. Just don’t use it regularly. Get a solar panel and an electric outboard. Your wife will love it, and you, more.
DownWest
Well-Known Member
There are oils now available that are not harmfull to the eco system, so can be used in your Seagull. One still has to remember to not talk aver the noise of the engine, as whatever you say is quite audable to those you are criticising...
Wansworth
Well-Known Member
Yes,I remember that detail
Mark-1
Well-Known Member
I just zoomed in on your Tri and, once I got over an extreme case of boat envy, I couldn't help but notice a massive great petrol outboard on the back!
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Chiara’s slave
Well-Known Member
That is true. It being a very goid sail boat, we use that to transit the harbour, then sail. Though I suspect most other sailing boats have a chunky diesel that is far more polluting than a 5 year old petrol outboard.
Tranona
Well-Known Member
You have to set it in context. like much of wartime developments the brief was to build something that could essentially be made in a jobbing engineering shop out of easily available materials. It was only required to last for 5 hours on small landing craft used in the D Day and subsequent landings on the French coast. The parts were made in a number of little workshops on the S coast and assembled in an old mill building next to the foundry on Poole Quay (Torpeedos were made just around the corner where the current RNLI headquarters is located!). Did the job perfectly and many that were abandoned after the landings got retrieved and provided years of service for local fishermen. Part of the reason so many survived was down to the preservative nature of the oil from the 10:1 mix.
Not too different a process from the current drone manufacturing in Ukraine.
Many post war success stories in manufacturing and product development came out of the wartime armaments industry.
Chiara’s slave
Well-Known Member
In other words, a fantastic product of their time, worth preserving for history.
Mark-1
Well-Known Member
Indeed. I'm sure it's a very excellent outboard with range limited only by your capacity to carry fuel and the ability to completely "recharge" in a couple of minutes anywhere that sells petrol. (Plus once fuel is used it weighs nothing.)
....but wasn't your wife supposed to be thanking you for having electric outboards?
Chiara’s slave
Well-Known Member
Our tender is electric, yes. If there was an electric solution for the DF, at any kind of rational cost, we’d do it.
14K478
Well-Known Member
The Seagull began life, as has been noted above by others, as a John Marston Ltd project along with Sunbeam bicycles, motor cycles and cars, and Sunbeam were the Rolls Royce of such things before Royce had met Rolls. The quality of the materials in a Seagull is superb and that is why they can be neglected for decades and come up smiling. They owe their real start in life to WW2 as has also been noted, but being Marston by origin they didn’t cut back on material quality; they just told the War Office that nothing else would do!
Mark-1
Well-Known Member
Me too, so until there is I guess we'll both have to stick with petrol.
wombat88
Well-Known Member
The man at Saving old Seagulls helped me get my Warrenjet outboard going. If you don't know what a Warrenjet is look it up. It is, or was, the future.
Fortunately I sold it before it ingested bits of stony beach!
Fortunately I sold it before it ingested bits of stony beach!
Tranona
Well-Known Member
Sorry, but that just is not true. There is very little connection between the Marston Seagulls and the post war Way-Hope types which derived from the wartime 102 as I described above, The next generation with the square cylinder blocks, particularly the smaller 64cc models were new designs. Of course the design principles were similar but there is virtually nothing carried over from the 102. Gradually over the years the quality of materials declined as they either became unavailable or too expensive (aluminium exhaust tubes instead of chrome plated brass or stainless, steel tanks instead of brass as examples). Many parts relied on a high degree of hand finishing - cylinder blocks and crankshafts were a nightmare to get right. I could go on. It was by the 1970s an ongoing fight to get them built in such a way that they performed well with customers. Much depended on a loyal group of experienced staff. It was a shock for me coming from a relatively high tec automotive component background to step back into the past of craft type working. Even more alarming to find that many parts actually had no engineering drawings and even some of those that did bore little relation between the drawing and the part as made.
Different world but despite all that the product has an enviable reputation, apart from the oil slicks.