New project - Seahunter 520

[ChrisParish]

So here is the latest family purchase. Picked it up from Essex last Thursday and towed it back to Poole.

It is a 5.2m (17ft) dory with a cuddy. Moulded in 2017 by Orwell Boats and it has never been on the water. It is clear that the moulds were getting tired and it very well could be the last one of these they made.

It’s a bare hull with the steering fitted and not much else, so it will need fully fitting out. The trailer also needs some work so there will be loads to post about.

At the moment the plan is to fit it with a 20hp 2 stroke which we have laying around, which will be fine for Poole harbour, but in the long run it will probably get something bigger.

Here’s a few pics to wet your whistle.

[daveh]

That's a fine boat. I look forward to watching the progress..

[harrison]

Ooooh! That looks nice Chris. Nearly enough room to put the T38 in the back.

It’ll go really well with 60/70/80 horses strapped on the back. Not called fast fishers for nowt.

[chris moody]

That looks nice. With an infill on the seats and a door on the cuddly would that be big enough to sleep in overnight? If so it would be great for overnight stays in a marina.

[Andy]

Plenty of room for dead fish !

[ChrisParish]

That looks nice. With an infill on the seats and a door on the cuddly would that be big enough to sleep in overnight? If so it would be great for overnight stays in a marina.

The cabin is quite short, so adding a door wouldn’t help.
If I put the cover over it I could overnight on it - just pretend it’s a tent!

[ChrisParish]

It’ll go really well with 60/70/80 horses strapped on the back. Not called fast fishers for nowt.

Long run the plan is to fit a 60 etec to it.

[Andy B]

Nice boat, I've done the Dory thing myself in the past.
Just a word of warning though, If you do plan to overnight in it don't expect to get any sleep............
The sound of the water slap, slap, slap, slap, slapping under the hull will drive you NUTS!

[ChrisParish]

We fitted the engine, a 1979 Selva 20hp, along with the associated remotes.
On the 31st of May we went down to Cobbs Quay in Poole and after handing over a kidney we launched the boat!

The engine starts fine if you don’t use the recoil starter and instead wrap a rope around the flywheel and yank it. This should have been our first clue....

Anyway, we got it going, got it in gear and went for a jolly around the harbour for a couple of hours.
We haven’t got around to fitting any seating yet, so my Mum sat in a folding chair. She said it was very comfortable.

We tried to stop are Arne but when we reduced the revs to tick-over the engine stopped. Started again after a few pulls but then every time we tried to put it in gear it stopped.
I managed to get it started in gear and we made it back to Cobbs Quay without further incident.

We have never managed to get the engine to tick over nicely but we figured that it was because we hadn’t got it set up quite right and because it hadn’t been run in (although being 40 years old it had never been run).
However, it didn’t matter what adjustments we made to the engine, it just would just stop. We wondered if it was the fuel pump as people had reported that they don’t deliver enough fuel at low revs, but even with someone pumping the priming bulb it still stopped.
When adjusting the idle mixture and the throttle stop the engine never spluttered and died - it just stopped. This should have been our next clue...

The Selva uses a Bosch electronic ignition system with built in electronic advance (unlike the Johnson / Evinrude engines of the time which had a mechanical advance) now I suspect that it is actually an electronic retard rather than an electronic advance and that that feature is not working meaning that no matter what we do it just won’t run at low revs. It doesn’t look like we can buy the ignition parts any more so unless any of you have any ideas then it looks like we are on the lookout for a new engine.

[9-R]

Not sure why I didn't see this earlier, pretty cool! Keep us updated.