Spec Sheets for Display

[Buzzook]

Further to my previous about attending shows, I have produced a 'Motor Spec Sheet' for our guys to use when we have display days, to provide a degree of consistency and 'professionalism' to the display.

Text and colour can be changed, altered, even a photo added if you like!

If anyone (from anywhere) would like one for their motor(s) just PM me with a request.

Cheers
Mark

Please Note: The Spec Sheet comes as an A4-size pdf file so it's easy to print in either A4 or A3 - but the forum won't allow me to upload a pdf for some reason, so have had to convert it to a jpeg, hence resolution is a bit crap. Looks heaps better in pdf.

[Oyster 49]

Looks good, however 100,00 for use on D day landing craft is a little off the mark I suspect. I think an order for 10,000 for use on workboats, rafts and bridge building pontoons was probably more correct.

[Buzzook]

Yes, I've been told that by a couple of people. Seems the internet is not a reliable 'fact' source! lol

This is a draft version, I've altered the typos for the final version.

And had a few PMs from Seagullers in, of all places, Scotland. They're not called 'canny' for nothing it seems!

[A prop]

That depends on which dictionary you follow........

Malcolm

[Oyster 49]

Also production of the 102 continued into the seventies, and were made as specials after that. I have a 1969 wipac model. I belive Hugz has an early eighties 102 with electronic wipac ignition.

[charlesp]

The 102 wasn't a British Seagull design.
Nor was it the second oldest Seagull.

[Buzzook]

Sorry, Charles, I'm sure you can tell us at which engine number the models changed, and exactly how many different 'versions' there were of the 'Marston' Seagulls, but until your book is published so that the rest of us can share your more intimate knowledge, we poor plebs can only go with what information is available.

So if the info I've used on the Spec Sheet is incorrect, please, enlighten us!!

I'm always happy to learn something new, and, coming from a journalistic background, well accustomed to being 'wrong'

NB: I've already corrected the "100,000 ordered for D-Day" to '10,000 ordered for use on small craft'......as apparently that commonly available and widely published 'fact' is mere fantasy on the part of some long-forgotten scribe.

Probably a journalist.

[RickUK]

Slightly off-topic, but I wish we could quell or correct the tales about Seagulls for military service. I'm sure that the MOD of the day ordered Seagulls in excessive numbers as they were probably prone to do, and I assume Seagulls possibly had a place for pontoon manoueuvering, but I have yet to see any wartime film of hordes of small Seagull powered boats heading for invasion beaches.
The is no doubt that the services (Army, navy?) ordered Seagulls as there is paperwork to support spares supply, and there are motors with the MOD stamp and CIESS marking on them, but there is no certainty whether they were ent to certain 'hotspots' or just sold off as surplus.
With the passage of time, the chances of getting the story straight are diminishing, and the last stories become legend.

[charlesp]

Buzzook, may I suggest a thorough peruse of the main site, particularly here:

http://www.saving-old-seagulls.co.uk/ma ... arston.htm

and here:

http://www.saving-old-seagulls.co.uk/i_ ... etters.htm

There's a heap of information on this site, and from it you'll derive the various models in term of date of manufacture, and you'll come across the OJ which was the first '102' as we know it, although preceded by models of the same cubic capacity. You'll see photos and brochures, too.

Your'e quite correct when you say there's some nonsense on the Internet. Some of it is on British Seagull's own web site, most of the worst stuff is on American sites where they seem to invent history as they go along. But John has spent a long time putting this site together, and it's absolutely the best source available. Ian Talmadge is worthy of mention as an honourable exception to my comments about foreign sites.

The best primary source is of course the surviving motors and their documentation, and that features heavily.

[Buzzook]

Hmmmm....John's Marston page still refers to Bill Pinniger as a Sunbeam engineer, which I think you told us previously was definitely NOT correct?

So to make the Spec sheet make more sense, I'd need to say "the 102 Series" was the first "British Seagull"....

...is that what you're saying? Because anything made earlier is technically not a "British" Seagull but rather a "Marston Seagull", as Pinniger and Way-Hope only registered British Seagull in late '35 or early '36, I think you said once before.

[charlesp]

Buzzook you were saying the 102 was the first British Seagull design.The first of the 102 series - the OJ - was never marketed by British Seagull, but its successors, the OP and ON, were first marketed by Marston's then by British Seagull.

[Buzzook]

Ahhhh....that glimmer of light is peeking over my personal horizon.....

sooooo.....when I said in my previous that the "102 Series" was the first "British" Seagull, that was technically correct.....

....but if I'm reading your clarification correctly...it would be even more accurate to say that the OP 102 Series was the 'first' British Seagull.

I think I was getting confused about the engine capacity. The earlier "Marston" 102cc motors (OG, OH, OK) were, strictly speaking NOT referred to as a "102", but only as a "Seagull".

That right??

[charlesp]

The earlier Marston 102 motors you mention were called things like 'Marston Seagull Super' and other such model names, but of course they were completely different in most respects from the 102 as we know it, what with teardrop exhausts, some with reversing gearboxes etc.

The ON and OP were the first to be sold with a 'British Seagull' decal on the tank; some of the earlier ones still had 'Marston Seagull. The transition from one company to the other took a while, even some of the literature of the time is Marston stuff with a 'British Seagull' sticker or label paste over it.

I suspect the problem is not so much defining which was the first sold by British Seagull, or which was the first designed by them as in deciding which is actually a different model. The 102 series went through a lot of changes between 1936 and 1974, the latter being the last year of continuous manufacture. Many of those changes are tiny, some less so. Later batches were assembled partially to provide a 'special offer' for dealers and partially to reduce a large spares inventory.

When I put a placard on a motor I usually simply give it a year and a type, I veer away from horsepower rating as such. I sometimes include a brief description of what makes this one different.

I always regard the 'Little Model Forty' as being the first design that was pure British Seagull, the ON and OP as being the first marketed by British Seagull (although designed and first produced while the factory was still at Marston's), and the SN as the first modification of the original OJ by British Seagull, although there is good anecdotal evidence to suggest that Way-Hope and Pinniger were involved in earlier designs.

It's not black and white, it's evolutionary, and it's sometimes very confusing. Sometimes (as in the case of the OG) the reason for giving it a different model designation is a mystery, then along comes another brochure or another surviving engie and the reason is instantly clear (in this case an older style motor but equipped with a new style transom bracket).

[Charles uk]

I think you'll find Charles that the OG or as it was properly known, Marston Seagull Super High Duty was so called because it was the bigger capacity version (102cc) of the Marston Super Seagull (78cc) or as we call it an OF, the "Super" denoting that they both had FNR gearboxs, the OK was the 102 FNR that the only difference seems to have been the transom bracket change.

[charlesp]

You're dead right, old chum. That'll teach me to type first and ask questions afterwards..