Hello fellas, I haven’t posted in a long time. I’ve been very busy with raising two girls, running two businesses and racing my mini sprint but I still own 3 old outboards and still run them. I have a ’48 Zephyr, a ’54 Super Fastwin and a ’57 Fastwin. What can I say, my grandfather was an Evinrude man. The ’54 was apart for 3 years due to water intrusion in the gear case which was due to a worn driveshaft bushing in the lower housing. I had the parts to fix it but not the time until last week. Now all 3 motors are ready to go whenever they’re needed. Anyway, I wanted to share a story from about a month ago that really cracked me up. I went to the local ramp and launched my 2000 14′ Crestliner tinny with the ’57 Fastwin on a beautiful sunny Friday afternoon. A few other boaters were there and it’s always interesting to watch their faces when they see the Fastwin. She’s 60 this year and with no facelifts, makeup or otherwise she looks pretty rough. This motor is no basement queen. I first saw her in a barn covered with dust and mud daubers. The owner showed up at my house with it a month later as a gift. A year later I had her in the water. Mechanically, she’s golden. Every time I run her it’s hard to believe how smooth, quiet and powerful that motor is. I’ve done the usual ignition, carb, gear case reseal, upper crank seal, recoil rebuild but the powerhead is untouched inside. Back to the story at the ramp, and now it’s the moment of truth. All eyes are on me and the motor that looks like it came out of the trash. I know they’re thinking it’ll never start, nevermind power my boat up and down the river. As usual, she fires up on the second pull, I open the choke and let her run at high idle about 15 seconds. I untie the boat and slowly lean the mixture and lower the idle and snap her into reverse. The watchers were silent up til this point as they pretended they weren’t watching but just as I snapped her into forward a guy on what appeared to be a brand new 20′ center console with his family asks me, "Where ya goin?" I expected the usual what year is it or what horsepower but this guy wanted to know where I was going. His question surprised me and not knowing what he was getting at, I told the truth. "I don’t know, up river somewhere." As I motored away it hit me. This guy couldn’t believe I going out on the river with such a pile of garbage for a motor and he had to ask my destination. He probably thought I wouldn’t get far. These thoughts made me smile. I love that old motor and the way it looks makes it all the better. It was a free motor on a $400 boat and I’ll put it up against any new motor for reliability. Some guys get off on expensive new boats and some guys just love being out on the water on a sunny afternoon in August with God, nature, a cold beer and some American history. Up on plane at cruising speed, tiller in my left hand, I reached into my cooler and grabbed an ice cold Yuengling. I tool a healthy sip and wondered where that guy’s 2017 Yamaha would be in sixty years. My guess, recycled into beer cans. 🙂
Here’s the fastwin when I first started running her. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWK4meTGLoE
Thanks for reading and I want to say hello to Garry S, Lloyd, Jeff R and Bill S
'48 Zephyr, restored '06, runs great
'54 Fastwin, restored '09, runs great
'57 Fastwin, unrestored, locked up in 2018
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