Keep that outboard warm

IT’S BEEN COLD around here for the past few days.  Down at the marina there’s a thin layer of ice floating on top of the salt water. They let the freshwater faucets run slowly, day and night, to stop the pipes freezing up.

And when I look around I am always surprised to see scores of outboard motors hanging off the sterns of boats. Why, I want to know, why don’t they freeze the water that’s left inside them and suffer damage every time the air temperature drops below 32°F?

I have always been very cautious with my outboards.  I have always taken them home and stored them in the garage for winter. But perhaps I have been making unnecessary work for myself, because no one else seems to bother.  They just let their outboards hang there off their sterns and leave them to their own devices.

I know that some of them will have salt water in their innards, and it takes a lot more to freeze salt water; but then, when we get those icy blasts coming down the Frazier Valley from Canada the temperature can drop down to near zero, which should be enough to inflict damage, even if it is only for a short period.

And some more conscientious owners will have flushed their outboards with fresh water before abandoning them for winter.  That’s to cut down on corrosion on the engine’s insides, but it also means that it’s certain the water that remains will freeze, and expand, and cause enough havoc to bring joy to the lives of the people who repair outboard motors.

I have had owner’s manuals that say you should lower the engine in a saltwater berth when there’s ice around.  They’re never specific about the purpose of this, but I presume it’s because the non-frozen salt water will distribute some warmth (or comparative warmth) up the metal shaft and prevent the innards from freezing up.

If the manufacturers are concerned about the possibility of damage in freezing weather, why are the owners of outboard motors so cavalier in their approach?  I know this is a very rich country, but few people can afford a new outboard every season.  Besides, I feel aggrieved that the ones I see around me don’t seem to suffer winter damage.  By rights, owners who don’t have the nous or the energy to remove their outboards and take them home ought to be made to suffer like the few of us who happen to be blessed with common sense and a mariner’s awareness of thriftiness.

Just wait till spring. It will be very rewarding to see them going red in the face and sweating as they try to start those neglected outboards. Serves them right, I say.

Today’s Thought

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire,
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
— Robert Frost, Fire and Ice

Tailpiece

“Why so happy?”
“Somebody complimented me on my driving today.”
“That’s nice.”
“Yeah, they left a little note on the windshield. It said, 'Parking Fine.' ”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

The dreaded British Seagull

I’M STILL RUNNING IN a new outboard motor I bought recently, and every time I pull the starter cord I’m reminded of how much outboard motors have improved over the years.  My Tohatsu 6-hp Sail-Pro single-cylinder four-stroke is not as smooth-running as a silky 1975 6-hp Evinrude twin I once owned but when I compare it with that extraordinary Rube Goldberg device known as the British Seagull, I bless every engineer and designer who contributed in any way to the improvement that is evident on the evolutionary path from Seagull to Sail-Pro.

For those of you lucky enough never to have had the misfortune to own or operate a Seagull, I should explain that it was rudimentary in the extreme —  a single cylinder containing a very sloppy piston, topped by a spinning disc allegedly making electricity for the spark plug.  Tacked on to one side was a simple carburetor.  The float bowl had a small button sticking out of the top that you pressed down with a finger until the whole thing flooded and overflowed with gasoline.  A spreading rainbow sheen on the water around you was your signal to wind the starter cord around the spinning disc on top and pull like mad.

It was a two-stroke, of course, and you had to mix thick, gooey engine oil in with the gasoline so that the clunky bits inside received adequate lubrication.  If I remember right, the ratio of oil to gas was 1 : 25, or about four times as much oil as modern two-strokes used before they were deemed unacceptably polluting.  The Seagull was the ultimate polluting machine.

After you had flooded the carburetor, flicked closed the crude metal slide that served as a choke, and been hit on the back of the neck by the starter cord as it came off the disc on top, there were two ways to tell if the motor had started or not.

The first was a great gurgling roar, a noise fit to wake the dead.  You could hear a Seagull coming from miles away.

The second was a great cloud of blue-white smoke rising from the water astern. That was the exhaust, which consisted of 50 percent burned gasoline and 50 percent lubricating oil just slightly singed by the bronze-age combustion process.  The exhaust added its own smear of oil to the water around the stern, of course, though smear might be too wimpish a word to describe the fearful results of a Seagull’s passage through the water.  It was often said that you couldn’t get lost if you had a Seagull.  You just followed the smoking oil streaks back home.

With that much oil in the gas, the spark plug was bound to oil up and cease functioning every 20 minutes or so. The owners of Seagulls learned to carry spare plugs and they developed heat-proof horny calluses on their finger tips from removing red-hot plugs from the cylinder head.

To be fair, there were some advantages to the Seagull.  It did make other people laugh.  And you could throw it away in a fit of rage without feeling any sorrow.  It made a dandy anchor, with all those bits sticking out.

Today’s Thought

You gentlemen of England
That live at home at ease,
Ah! little do you think upon
The dangers of the seas.
— Martyn Parker

Tailpiece

“Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup.”
(29) “Please keep your voice down, sir, or everyone will want one.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

A kill-switch question

HAVING SEARCHED the advertisements in vain for an extra-long-shaft 6-horsepower outboard motor, I broke down the other day and bought a brand new one from the registered dealer.  I wasn’t impressed with the service. Among other things, I asked him two questions.

The first was: “Is there a fuel filter on this engine?”

“No,” he said.

There was, of course, as I discovered when I got home and looked in the owner’s manual.

The second question was this:

“How do I start the engine if the man driving the dinghy falls overboard, taking the emergency kill-switch lanyard with him?  How do I start the motor to get back to him?”

“Don’t know,” said the dealer. “I’ve never been asked that question before.”

It’s hard to believe that a man who sells new outboards for a living had never thought of that question for himself.

As you probably know, the coiled, red, kill-switch lanyard is meant to be attached to your wrist or clothing.  If you fall overboard it jerks a small semi-circular disk out of a switch on the front of the engine. That allows a spring-loaded button to close inward and stop the motor immediately.

But you can’t start the motor unless that little disk is replaced.  And there it is, dangling on the end of a cord attached to your driver floating 50 yards astern.

Now, if you look inside the engine cover you’ll see two thin wires leading to the kill switch. My bet is that the act of pushing in the switch, which happens when the disk is removed, either completes a circuit, grounding the spark plug so that it won’t fire, or it breaks the hot-wire circuit to the spark plug, thus preventing it from firing.

In the second case, I suspect there is a good chance that if you simply cut the circuit between the magneto and the spark plug, you’re likely to blow a diode or do some other permanent damage  to the engine.  So my guess is that the safety switch simply grounds the circuit to the spark plug and stops it firing.

That being the case, you ought to be able to get the engine going again by fiddling with the two wires inside the engine cover.  You’ve either got to cut one or the other, or maybe you should cut both and twist them together.

Does anyone a little better informed than my dealer know how to get the motor going again? Does anyone understand the actual function of the emergency kill switch?

Today’s Thought

There’s lots of people—this town wouldn’t hold them—
Who don’t know much excepting what’s told them.
— Will Carleton, City Ballads.

Tailpiece

“Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup.”
(16) “Ah, thank you, sir, the dog must have missed it.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)