Sea Stories: Cap' Pat and the Stuart Turner 2 Stroke Starting Handle

22 Jan 24:

Pat was on a small motor launch in the middle of the narrow end of the river, about 40 feet out from the bottom of the boatyard slipway. He was attempting to start a small Stuart Turner 2 stroke inboard motor. 

Many will know that the old Stuart Turner 2 stroke hand cranked motors were reliable, economical and long lasting, but they can be very troublesome starters at times.

After a few minutes of relentless effort and much cursing, his short fuse sparked his powder, the cast iron starting handle, which weighed about 10 lbs was angrily removed from the flywheel shaft and thrown with all his strength, the direction it was heading in wasn't even considered, the all consuming thing was just to throw the offending handle as far as humanly possible, a punishment for it's part in refusing to bring the engine to life.

The starting handle whirled through the air in a high arc, across the 40ft of water, past the whole 80 ft of the slipway, eventually coming to a stop when it struck the transom of a deep keel boat inside the boat shed at the top of the slipway. The slipway has a slope of about 20° so you can guess how high above the water the starting handle was at that point. An Olympian performance by any measure.

Many thanks to Cap' Bilge Rat for sharing Pat's story.

Sea Stories: The British Seagull: Yealm River Episode by Bilge Rat

20 Jan 24:

From Bilge Rat:

"Pat was in a small clinker dinghy in the middle of the River Yealm attempting to start the Seagull outboard motor mounted on the transom, it was the old model that ran on 3/4 pint of oil to gallon of petrol, (the reason they last forever) the spark plug had oiled up, so there was no chance of it starting unless the spark plug was removed, cleaned and replaced. Pat Hall didn't have much patience with mechanical devices, especially motors that don't start right away. He became frustrated very quickly, ripped the motor from the transom, threw it into the bilge of the dinghy and gave it a severe kick for good measure. Unfortunately, he was wearing Wellington boots, which offered little protection, resulting in him a breaking his toe. The resulting pain angered him further, so he grabbed the outboard motor and heaved it over the side into 80 feet of salt water, this was the moment he realised there were no oars in the dinghy, meaning he faced a cold swim, or have to hail the ferryman, both options embarrassing for him. Additional to that, the outboard motor now residing in Davy Jones Locker, belonged to someone else."

...to be continued...

...continued...

The Seagull was recovered by a diver a few days later, cleaned, service, tuned and put back into service. Pat got a ribbing or two from the Ferry Captain at the local pub, friendly and measured though, as Pat was a mountain of a man.

Signed,

Doug "Bilge Rat"

Editor's Note: Take the same story, swap out Pat with Cap'. Replace kick with salty pirate language. And instead of Davy Jones locker, trade motor to friend for a Christmas tree.