Saving Old Seagulls

Possibly December 27th?
The tide appears to confirm this probability, but will it change later? (no not the tide)
Dress theme I have not heard - next year I shall be a resident and more up to date . . .

Any news yet?

If all goes well, i might attend next years race with my youngest son.

Jon

Not heard anything yet, thought you were going.

The race was yesterday (27th).

I entered with a friend and we went along with two others who came for "artistic direction" and to support.

Our outfit consisted of a 17' Canadian canoe and a hotchpotch engine. Longshaft, 102cc, maybe a silver seagull?, Amal carb off some old motorbike, 2:1 gearbox and an alternative propeller. I'd had a not very well thought out tinker inside the engine, played with smoothing and widening bits here and there and adding bits elsewhere.

It was a great turnout and weather was superb, barely any wind and pretty warm. Must have been over 30boats.

Silent start went ok for us, starred on the second or third pull. The recoil start boys, (especially those with seagull 6s) got away but we were hot on their tails. We were easily the fastest boat. It would max out at a GPS measured 7knots and about 4500rpm (ouch).... However, after rounding the first corner, the motor slowed and died!

I didn't know what to suspect so after a few failed pulls, we paddled to shore and I went into quick diagnosis mode with the bare minimum tool kit. By now, the fastest couple boats were off and the pack was bearing down. Pulled the plug, whipped the bottom off the carb. Fuel:check, spark:check, compression:check. And it's running again!

By now the pack are mostly past us but we paddled back out and start off again, like something out of a Herbie film, we're accelerating through the pack, overtaking everything.

We no longer think we can win but are still keen for the fastest canoe trophy. However, it's not long before were loosing power again and we drift to a stop. This time I diagnose overheating straight away so we just leave it for a little bit and restart again. Now, we're doing much more checking of the water flow, it seems great most of the time but starts to struggle at speed. Any cavitation seems to really mess things up. Very much regretting the last 1" spacer I slipped into the transoms now!

We repeated this behaviour for a full lap. Skipper, Alex had had enough so dived ashore at the harbour to grab a can of cider. I took the helm and we collected the two others and we dicided to try the final lap as a four. By now, the seagull 6 boys were just coming in to the end of the second lap/finish. There was still a considerable bunch behind us though and we thought it would be fun to have everyone on board. Plus, the extra weight might help keep the pump in water.

With me driving now and everyone else having to navigate as with 3 people in front of me, I couldn't see anything, we once again ploughed on through the pack. With the extra cooling and perhaps a slightly more mechanically sympathetic helmsman we did a full lap with no problem. Home!

I don't know our position, we had to scamper off before the prize giving. It would've been very fun to have beaten the '6 guys with a very worn, cobbled together 102 but we had great fun anyway.

Thanks to all involved with the organisation, a brilliant day!
"Five gold rings!"
last minute, preflight checks
paddle out to the silent start
"a partridge in a pear tree"
start your engines!

As things stand at the moment, my Zodiac is making a great impression of a bathtub and not a boat, otherwise i probably would have gone down.
Next year (fingers crossed) i'm (ahem) WE'RE gonna have a bash at this come hell or high water.
AND with a beaten up old 102. (i've got enough to choose from )
Plenty of time for pre-race testing up here on the canal.


Gareth
Just a suggestion, ditch that carb that's fitted onto your 102, and find yourself a good 46n replacement.
Secondly, don't be afraid to get stuck in and clean out that waterjacket in your cylinder. I bet it's full of crud inside which won't help things too much with the cooling. And did the shroud around the gearbox actually help with streamlining at all?
BTW, what type of prop is that i can see in the pics? Curious that's all...

Jon

Thanks Jon,

I have an old amal seagull carb but it's pretty scummy. I chose this old bike one as I have heaps of jets lying around for it so had a go at jetting it. The carb doesn't need to do a very refined job, so long as it starts and the mix is not lean at full throttle it's satisfactory for this job.

Water jacket is mint, fully cleaned out just before. When it's pumping, it pushes a lot of water through, I think it was just a case of being slightly too high in the water.

Re. Cowl, who knows, looks the part though! And doesn't weigh much at all.

Re. Prop, don't know exactly, it was an eBay buy. Came off something Japanese or American I think. When I bought it, it seemed to make sense in terms or diameter and pitch for my boat/engine/gearbox combo. But maybe something a little "harder work" would help lower the revs a tad.

A few pickies from Lerryn 2016.

Nice pics! I just had a route through the seagull boneheap yesterday but it's too early to be thinking about next year yet.

...but it's not too late now!

However, I'm down a skipper and a vessel.
I'm sure I can press gang a shipmate or two but it won't be the same without the green old town camper.