Saving Old Seagulls

Perhaps someone added the extra holes because they were having to run the motor too deep in the water. One fault I find in the Seagull design, is how deep the leg is designed to go in the water for their intended use on larger boats. Often when the motor is set to the correct depth, this means the propeller cannot get clear water because the hull is in the way and/or starts coming up out of the water if the boat is getting rocked around in a swell, exaggerated if you are running on an off centre mount. While the design is very versatile allowing you to vary the shaft length anywhere between short and long shaft with one of those nifty little clamps the relationship between exhaust and prop always remains the same and often mean you don't have the prop deep enough. If there was a way to alter the position of the exhaust outlet height as well, that could be quite handy in some applications. On a forty plus for example if you cut up a gash gear case, you could fit the top half where it would be on a short shaft and run the exhaust to that and the prop and all would be sitting 6" lower, I guess they could also have made an exhaust tube with bolt on blanking plates at different heights and a bolt on exhaust "nozzle" that could be attached at the appropriate level - just a thought.

I think an arrangement like that would make a long shaft 40 plus work much better on one of my boats. Perhaps if I ever get round to tarting up my one 40 plus and have it apart, I will try making an exhaust tube with an outlet mimicking the existing one about 4" up the leg, I could retain the existing one and the exhaust could just take the line of least resistance, although flowing the gases nicely in to the new outlet might be more efficient. I guess there a lots of ways of achieving the idea including several outlets and something to block of the ones that would be out of the water in any particular application.

On yours, covering the holes would be unlikely to do anything other than what you say about reducing noise, some would argue you don't need the two that are meant to be there for it to run properly, assuming the motor height is correct on the boat.

Excellent save on the 40+! How anyone could let it get to that state beggars the imagination..... Still, it's a good'un now. I do like the 40 family.....