Igor, as far as I recall my father never had to do any actual maintenance on the Seagull - it was just difficult for anyone but him to start. More than a decade after my family had that Seagull I had a locally-made Atom Waterboy outboard of my own. It started out air cooled like the Seagull, but my father rebuilt it with a water-cooled cylinder (a Waterboy option). It was quite a bit more powerful than the Seagull, and easier to start as well (though that wasn't asking much). Those tiny cheap outboards served a purpose - the number of people who had power-boats increased greatly. With those second-generation outboards like the Waterboy, you could travel a bit further, though you still needed to keep the oars handy.
