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Kiwi rescued after 2 days adrift in Dinghy in the Med


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Astonished that anyone would willing want to buy and rely on a Seagull in this day & age. I say this as a Brit

who’s owned 2 and even visited the factory where they were made in an attempt to resolve ‘issues’ (far too many times).

 

My last experience of our bought-new-but-never-worked-properly Seagull was watching my father lift it up over his head and throw it off the back of our 18ft trailer sailor at the entrance to Chichester Harbour. It’s probably still down there somewhere.

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I guess we were just lucky.  Dad had one when I was born - it is one of my earliest boating memories.  Then he bought another, and it was the first outboard I learned to start and operate as a kid.  The last one we had - purchased circa '74 or '75, was the 5hp model with a clutch, long shaft and a large 5-bladed prop.  He called it the barge engine.  It would push an 18' displacement hull along quite happily.  [Oops - OK Boomer - you mean 5.5 metres].

 

Then in the '80s my uncle bought an old 2.5hp out of pure nostalgia and used it on a wonderful wooden dinghy he had built. 

 

None of them ever skipped a beat.  Ahh - memories.

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Astonished that anyone would willing want to buy and rely on a Seagull in this day & age. I say this as a Brit

who’s owned 2 and even visited the factory where they were made in an attempt to resolve ‘issues’ (far too many times).

 

My last experience of our bought-new-but-never-worked-properly Seagull was watching my father lift it up over his head and throw it off the back of our 18ft trailer sailor at the entrance to Chichester Harbour. It’s probably still down there somewhere.

According to Wikipedia, the late eighties models are the ones to avoid, would that tie in with your bad experiences? My experience, which was prior the then, is reliable and near bulletproof.
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According to Wikipedia, the late eighties models are the ones to avoid, would that tie in with your bad experiences? My experience, which was prior the then, is reliable and near bulletproof.

 

They have always been rubbish, we used to think they where the bee's knee back in the 60s and they where.

 

So long as you toke a bunch of spear plugs,ten gallons of fuel for the mile shear pins, and last but not least another spear engine and oars. 

 

If they where such hot stuff none of the other manufacturers would have got a look in. They where made in mother Britten, Engines for butter and sheep. 

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I’ve had 3, brought them all from people who hadn’t used them in decades. Fresh fuel and they all ran. Still have a 5hp, a few years back we used it 3 days a week to go fishing - trawling for kawai in fact, would turn it off every time we caught one and restart it after. Never rowed home. Same old spark plug, never broken a shear pin either. They do need a heap of oil though, quite smokey. I might get it out today and give it a go if it stops raining.

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