Morse Machinations

In amongst other fun things recently, I had to replace the gearbox control cable on the boat. Being me, I bought a standard cable. Being my boat, it didn't take a standard cable.

After much scratching of heads and trying to describe what I had over the phone (and even emailing photos) the supplier of the new cable sent me the wrong one and admitted they had no idea what I had. Odd that a company in Lowestoft didn't recognise an outboard control cable when they saw one, but hey, anyway. Mine had a long thread on the gearbox end; thankfully I was able to replace the cable fittings rather than the newly bought cable, and I can go forward - and reverse - again.

This was all a month or two ago; I was reminded of it today by this ebay ad for a dual lever control unit just like mine, sold for controlling an outboard setup.

This, along with Tortoise's chequered history does make me think that Tortoise is more or less a meatl version of a GRP boat than anything else...