Saving Old Seagulls

I was responsible for getting someone else's thread totally off course (for which I apologise), with my interest in how the demise of Seagull came about and by thinking if they had survived, what would a 2012 model Seagull look like, what features could it have retained? would it just have ended like most other outboards for sale? would it be a rebadged Tohatsu like most of the small motors are today? how could it have remained different? what do the modern outboards not have, that could give Seagull a niche market?

So assuming Seagull had had a Fairy Godmother with very deep pockets, what could they have come up with to remain as popular and succesful as they were in the 1970's through to this day?

Dont know about the British. But in Australia, just about all of our manufacturing has gone up to china. So what i am thinking. Would todays British Seagulls be made in china if they were still in operation. And would they look anything like this

I have a feeling there was a great danger of Seagull just becoming a brand name to cynically stick on products made elsewhere with no real link to their original heritage. Even the resurrected Triumph motorcycle company has shifted production abroad to remain competitive, originally the new Bonneville "replicas" were made in the UK, now I think it's Thailand?

I was surprised by seeing a price list for Seagulls from 1978, it's incredible how much cheaper things are in relative terms these days. In 1978 a new 40+ long shaft is listed at 370 pounds. A long shaft Century plus at 505 pounds. In 1976 I bought a brand new Honda SS50 "sports moped" for 210 pounds, so they were certainly not a cheap item in their day. When I started work proper in 1982, after finishing my engineering degree on the 5,000 per annum that was the going rate then, I took home 294 pounds and some change a month. Now a new 6hp four stroke Tohatsu can be bought for under $1500, which is not even 1000 pounds with the exchange rate as it is, so 34 years later it doesn't even cost twice as much as a Century Plus and is only part of a month's salary. Certainly the ability to make things cheaply is astounding, even if we are not always delighted with end result, or wish our children could be employed making some of these things rather than folks in China or where ever.

Certainly it seems that the profit in small outboards is such that everyone needs to pool their resources rather than designing their own models, this would have made it difficult for Seagull to have continued to keep their individuality, and it's almost certainly impossible to succeed in today's competitive market without the top end high horse power models where much larger profits can be made.

Does the Seagull concept of low gearing and large propellers still hold good in the modern age? can a Silver Century Plus with that huge "Hydrofan" really do things that a modern motor can't?

I don't know of many other British manufactures that did make an outboard that was leading in design or concept.
Most still had cast iron cylinders and about twice the weight of any other outboard, If you look at the American motors of the 40's & 50's they were miles apart, maybe they did play on there name, as a company today they would never get away with the same design for so many years.

SS50 I had one, four stroke

I've noticed since living in the States that some of the 50's and early 60's motors are quite modern looking and still perform pretty well compared to their modern counterparts. There there are quite a lot of Evinrude and Johnson motors of that era for sale in the local online classifieds, as they have only seen fresh water they are in decent cosmetic shape also.

Hmmm thinking now

I'd say to survive the market it would have to have technical innovation & offer good value. A bit like when BS got started in the 1930's. Yet another Tohatsu knock-off would offer no competitive edge

Torqeedo have some good innovation
http://www.torqeedo.com/uk/

Environmental discharge is a consideration going forward. Smoke / noise / oil drips

Good value might mean manufacture in progressive production friendly countries like Thailand or Vietnam. The west is very discouraging for progressive manufacturers & entrepreneurs, taxation & red tape maximus (unless you're a banker).

So the new Seagull outboard would have
* propeller-less silent fluid drive, just like the 'Red October' sub
* all powered by a suitcase sized Thorium nuclear reactor
* optional extras include a smoke generator for that nostalgic feel & gooey oil dripper

I wonder what my mate John Britten is up to?

RexNZ

I had Hornby trains in the early 70's that had smoke generators so smoke would come from funnels to give you that authentic appearance, it smelt pretty good from what I remember.

A leaking nuclear reactor could be the modern equivalent of a 10:1 premix.

Leaking nuclear reactor equivalent to a 10:1 mix...

...are you smoking something you shouldn't?

Maybe a seagull could of looked like this if thet were to have a Enviromently freindly outboard. Its Diesel.

Quite like that
i dont like normal boring looking outboards

I think seagulls demise actually started when they were doing very well in the late 60s. At that point they were making 40s, centuries and 102s. The youngest had little development for over 15 years. If they had developed new products whilst they had the market share to fund it it might have been a different story? When they finally developed new engines such as the QB it was too late.

That said I still think a 2012 seagull would be a cheap overseas assembled product that would not last.

I had a 1977 model suzuki AP50 that had a seperate oil tank and engine driven oil pump that supplied oil direct to both main bearings, and the inlet tract downstream of the carb. Hardly any blue smoke when warmed up, and used very little oil. revved up to 10,000 rpm! Could this concept have been applied to seagull? a modified century/40 with vacuum operated oil pump, roller bearings, very clean running etc?

How about a twin based on 2 model 40 blocks? That would have been an interesting engine. Perhaps the water jackets made of a lighter material?

They never had anything approaching the investment needed to compete with all those new style motors. It's important to remember that they always were a very small concern.

They would have needed a huge pot to start up a line with a lightweight power head complete with oil seals reed valves and roller bearings and small tolerances. Another big pot to come up with a leg with all its intricacies, gearbox designed and tooled from scratch, and all the ancillaries. That pot wasn't available, insufficient cash, insufficient assets, insufficient collateral even for the sort of loan required. All the company would be able to keep from their range would be the brand and the patent for the prop spring. No new motor bidding for world sales would keep a single component from the Centuries and Forties.

British Seagull were at no time in their history financially positioned to challenge true mass production, no matter where it came from. They were even less capable of mounting a challenge to the same thing from factories whose workers were paid on the Asian scale.

Remember the inflation of the seventies, when oil shenanigans caused all manner of tremors in Western economies, remember the economic miracles of Germany and Japan, tooled and supported by US aid, and put that into the mix; the impossibility of it all becomes plain.

And by the time of the QB, selling in its tens, they had no hope of competing with the Tohatsu/Mariner/Mercury etc imports that were selling in the hundreds of thousands and more.

All down to money...

The financial position seemed to play a big part in the demise of many companies, while as you say Germany and Japan got to retool with new equipment, British companies seemed to struggle on for years with old equipment,, manufacturing techniques and largely pre war designs. Britain as a whole was left bankrupt by the cost of WWII, the Americans gained great prosperity and a huge boost to their manufacturing and industrial might, indeed WWII is credited with getting them out of the depression the country had been in. Although considered victorious Britain paid quite a price. The time when many businesses started the inevitable falter (late 60's & 70's) also coincided with very tough times, lack of investment, terrible inflation, strikes, unions demanding high wages etc. and then the sudden rush, as it seemed, of imported competition. What was sad about this is that many of these companies had designs and prototypes in existence that were good enough to have taken on competitors head on, the know how was there, but they had to be shelved due to lack of the finance to get them into production and they were forced to struggle on making their outdated products ultimately just staving off the inevitable for a little longer. I don't know about Seagull, but in the motorcycle world the management of the BSA group, for example, during the time when they were very successful were truly awful, if not downright incompetent and undoubtedly played a major part in the companies total collapse.

Interesting stuff. There are some truly ugly (and as such well cool) Asian diesel outboards to be had, Klaxon build some particularly hideous (excellently horrendous) offerings. Love the way the starter rope is at the back of the motor. Diesel also leaves the way open to bio-fuel, a whole can of very interesting worms all it's own. Electric has some serious potential, but there is still that annoying battery thing. This http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn3 ... ngine.html interested me too, loving the no moving parts thing. There is always the steam option http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/5971263 Not without it's merits either. Still in Asia, racing long tails http://www.john-tom.com/Klong16/LongTail.html is truly impressive! Anyone who can get 100mph from a 150cc agricultural water pump motor has my respect! Looks like fun, actually....ah the wacky world of outboard motors! The problem, in my opinion, is that Seagull have already trimmed all the fat there was. Can't make it any simpler. The only really clever thing left would be to wean them off oil some how to run straight gas. Better yet, do away with the reciprocating piston altogether and have something with a turbine motif of some sort. The rotary engine had promise but was killed by tip seal issues and a god awful noise when running.

Mark my words; dilithium crystal technology is the way to go..