Seagull remorse - does it exist?

[dylanwinter]

Wiki and Golding

Indeed. But...(and I ask other readers for their frankest points of view)...

...if you saw THIS chap swimming among the moorings near you...

...wouldn't you think..."it's Searush!!"

No offence, I hope. Fine looking fellow, I'm sure.

I just looked Golding up on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Golding

apparently, as a keen sailor, he owned a Seagull silver century.....

that is amazing

at the age of 86 he suddenly realised the error of his ways and decided that he would never again use a seagull.

The engine has been polished up and now hangs in the William Golding Museum in Newquay where he was born

he is a fine example to us all

Dylan

 

[Greenheart]

Lord of the Flywheels?

Maybe that's the point: British Seagulls can't offend anyone, on a desert island.

 

[Even Chance]

Nowt wrong with the great wee engines. I use a 1964 model on the back of my 1938 clinker 12' lug yawl rigged sailing dinghy as a backup, but rarely use it. It simply wouldn't look the same with a modern 4 stroke hanging off the transom. Sure it drips a wee bit of oil and petrol, but I dont mind. I do mind when a fishing boat spills diesel in the harbour tho and messes up my waterline with crud.

 

[dylanwinter]

struck dumb

Nowt wrong with the great wee engines. I use a 1964 model on the back of my 1938 clinker 12' lug yawl rigged sailing dinghy as a backup, but rarely use it. It simply wouldn't look the same with a modern 4 stroke hanging off the transom. Sure it drips a wee bit of oil and petrol, but I dont mind. I do mind when a fishing boat spills diesel in the harbour tho and messes up my waterline with crud.

if that is irony it is genius

if it is a genuine opinion

it is also genius in its own way

whatever it is I am struck dum

Dylan

 

[Even Chance]

No irony here Dylan. Its all true!
I must have the only working seagull for a hundred miles, and it doesnt get used very often cos the boat is only used very occasionly. When it does get wet she sails, just like she was supposed to!
The bit I do mind is when fishing boats are filling with diesel and overspill into the harbour. I also mind when they pump their bilges into the harbour. I also own an E-Boat, which as you know doesnt have inboards and thru-hulls to worry about making a mess, so its only a few drips from my poor wee Seagull that I have to worry about. I have to hold my hands up here and admit that it does make a slick that I have to try and disperse fairly quickly though to make sure nobody else sees it and finds out that I am the bad one! I dont like making a mess when I hate it so much myself!
For tenders, and use in the kind of inland waters you frequent that are filled with wildlife I have to agree that they arent the best choice, but maybe some folks simply cant afford any better?

 

[Greenheart]

If that is irony it is genius;

whatever it is I am struck dumb.

Dylan

+1! Sounds like a blatant fart-fiend, objecting to neighbours' incontinence.

He may have a point though...lots of anti-green horrors committed by fishing fleets, are forgiven as commercial inevitabilities.

 

[Even Chance]

+1! Sounds like a blatant fart-fiend, objecting to neighbours' incontinence.

He may have a point though...lots of anti-green horrors committed by fishing fleets, are forgiven as commercial inevitabilities.

Come on man, ya can't compare the output of the rarely used lone Highland Seagull to the atrocities of the local fishing fleet surely?

 

[Greenheart]

Agreed. You even lend the noisy li'l devil some likable personality there - The Lone Highland Seagull. Almost noble. Nothing to do with the wretched wave-flattening water-glistening British Seagulls we suffer from on the English Channel. Different species altogether!

 

[Even Chance]

Agreed. You even lend the noisy li'l devil some likable personality there - The Lone Highland Seagull. Almost noble. Nothing to do with the wretched wave-flattening water-glistening British Seagulls we suffer from on the English Channel. Different species altogether!

Brilliant!!
They are indeed an altogether different breed of pollution device! I look forward to having our intrepid wildlife cameraman up here to film my wee Highland beastie in all its glory, languishing in its native habitat.

 

[Twister_Ken]

I just looked Golding up on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Golding

apparently, as a keen sailor, he owned a Seagull silver century.....

that is amazing

at the age of 86 he suddenly realised the error of his ways and decided that he would never again use a seagull.

The engine has been polished up and now hangs in the William Golding Museum in Newquay where he was born

he is a fine example to us all

Dylan

I'm no good at this speed reading lark. Wondered why there would be a William Golding Museum in Norway.

 

[Greenheart]

I wonder what other purposes, the vilified Seagull could concievably be adapted for?

Maybe...an oil/water separation centrifuge? - the Seagull is employed in rotating a drum, inside which G-forces press liquids of differing density, to different points in the mix, from which they can be extracted rather than left to disperse damagingly.

In fact the Seagull's own rank secretions could thereby be kept from staining its surroundings...

...or, it could just be left to gather cobwebs in the garage.

 

[Twister_Ken]

I wonder what other purposes, the vilified Seagull could concievably be adapted for?

Maybe...an oil/water separation centrifuge? - the Seagull is employed in rotating a drum, inside which G-forces press liquids of differing density, to different points in the mix, from which they can be extracted rather than left to disperse damagingly.

In fact the Seagull's own rank secretions could thereby be kept from staining its surroundings...

...or, it could just be left to gather cobwebs in the garage.

Four of 'em, clamped to the corners of a piece of planking, would make a nice 'maritime heritage' table.

 

[Greenheart]

Four of 'em, clamped to the corners of a piece of planking, would make a nice 'maritime heritage' table.

I like it! I want one! Could their propellors be replaced by little rubber wheels, so the table spontaneously becomes a lethal high-speed carousel?

 

[interloper]

Returning to the subject of Seagull outboards and the amount of unburnt 2-stroke oil being expelled into waterways, I spent part of this past weekend changing the oil in my 4-stroke outboard while floating in a canoe underneath the engine while my powerboat was on a boat lift. It occurred to me that one misstep while lifting a jug of used oil onto the dock would result in more oil going into the creek than all my previous years of running 2-stroke outboards.

 

[Yantlet]

I just looked Golding up on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Golding

apparently, as a keen sailor, he owned a Seagull silver century.....

that is amazing

at the age of 86 he suddenly realised the error of his ways and decided that he would never again use a seagull.

The engine has been polished up and now hangs in the William Golding Museum in Newquay where he was born

he is a fine example to us all

Dylan

You are such a tease Dylan

 

[LONG_KEELER]

I think many of us still have a touch of fondness. But the burns from a hot engine, oil on clothes and the chance of catching your goolies in the rotor cry out for the modern stuff.

The Morris Cowley and Royal Enfield Bullet live on, but the Seagull is probably doomed now.

Who knows, they might spring up again in a new green format.

 

[Greenheart]

I think it was Jay Leno who pointed out that while we like the evocation of history brought to life by horse-drawn carriages, the truth is that cars, whether we like or loathe them, saved the horse from its gruelling working existence; it's now a characterful souvenir.

Likewise, old cars, bikes & steam engines...they're attractive because their working life is widely acknowledged to have passed; and when you see the crud which steam trains (and a great many 'classic' cars) spew out, we can feel grateful of that.

The Seagull, too. Mechanically outmoded, politically unwarrantable; its time has passed. If owners weren't so defiant of that, the old rattler's appearance on rare occasions would raise a cheer. Not so, when it's still in daily use.

Think soot-grimed railway stations and streets slathered with manure. We've moved on, and it's just as well!

 

[yellowspinnaker]

Goolies catching in the rotor? They have a rotor?

We obviously are not discussing the same things.

 

[Greenheart]

Goolies catching in the rotor? They have a rotor?

We obviously are not discussing the same things.

Alarming thought, though. Imagine a Seagull Chinook. Or a 'flying banana' (below) of the outboard world. It's a nightmare, in every way.

There's something of the Seagull, about that. Even if it's only the black-and-white image.

 

[Greenheart]

A part of me wants to say:

Happy New Shearpin!

Yup. Sorry.