D Day The Steel arrives Eventually !

30th October 2007

Finally the day came to get the steel unloaded, We hired a front loader to lift the boat from the truck.

David (9) Adam (2) and Dara (5) waiting patiently for a truck to arrive.

As usual we waited all day and had to fight to get it delivered that night so at 10:45 Pm a very annoyed driver came to town.. well he thought HE was annoyed till he met me!..

Patryk and Milo assisted the loading of the forks while I drove the machine. It took just over 2 hours to unload all 600+ pieces totalling more than 13 tons of metal. We had to floodlight the drive and light up the trailer. Only 1 piece of steel slightly bent, nothing a good hammer wont sort out.

Most of the lifts involved lifting 4 metre wide sheets of steel piled on top of each other over 4 metres high to clear the trees each side of the drive way. At least we wont have as much difficulty getting the boat out as it will be lifted out by a 130 ton crane. but thats another story.









The end result in daylight... now where to start!

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Throttle Shift Controller Arrives Finally!

Back in early July after advertising on the Antique Outboard Motor Club website that I needed a controller, I got a response from a guy in New Jersey that he had a Green Quicksilver manual two lever controller with cables that would be the right length for a Squirt and the appropriate vintage for my motor. He actually had it on a Squirt some years back. We agreed on a price, I sent a check and started waiting for the package to arrive. I made some follow-up calls to him and he said he was trying to track down the package with the post office. After several weeks and a few interim calls, I called ready to ask for a refund and he said the post office never did find it in their system but over the weekend a soggy box with all the addresses blurred arrived back at his shop. It was my wayward controller. He repackaged it and sent it UPS this time and gave me the tracking number. I tracked it on the UPS website right to my door and it only took 3 days.

Its all there and the cables hook up to the engine as its supposed to. After playing around with various potential locations, it seems that the best location is between the carling and the shear just aft of the dash. If mounted low on the side it has to be on the floor for the levers to clear and its not a comfortable place while seated in the boat. Inboard of the carling, the cables are exposed and its right where my knee wants to be. This means the decking will need a cutout for the levers to protrude through. Other Squirt builders have mounted it there and now I see why.

The cables have the necessary connectors for hook-up to the motor and are about 9 long. They may be a bit long but it all seems to work. He included an extra set of cables that are about 11 long just in case.

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