This is the engine in Don and Theresa Rumph's Tortuga. It is a 2 cylinder exposed valve Mitsubishi engine. This is the engine that allegedly the powers behind the Marshall Reconstruction Plan directed the Mitsubishi factory to produce "to get the Japanese fishing industry back on its feet after WWII". It is started by hand cranking the 400 pound (!) flywheel, there is no electric start. Don is pretty muscular and quite capable of handcranking this engine. While running, the exposed valve mechanisms must have twelve drops of oil applied every four hours. It idles at 300 rpm, cruises at 900 rpm (with 5 knots of boat speed) and has a maximum rpm of 1400. It uses 0.5 gallons of diesel per hour driving a 22 inch fixed three-blade propeller on a 1 3/8 inch shaft. The engine develops 13 horsepower. The exact age of the engine is unknown. One last comment about it, . . . there is no water lift in the exhaust system. It is an above water-line "North Sea" exhaust with quite a distinctive sound.

Don and Theresa have been our friends ever since we met them coming down the coast. They are from Bellingham, Washington and have lived aboard Tortuga for several years prior to beginning this cruise. Tortuga was built in Yohohama, Japan in 1964 at the Okotomoto Bros. Shipyard. Her mahogany planks are bronze fastened to keiyoki wood frames. She is the a one-of-a kind of the 1929 William Atkin "Thistle" design. The "Thistle" is a flush decked (no deckhouse) version of Atkin's "Eric" design.

So we have concocted a new measure of "How Rough It Was". No, not to be measured by how many times someone threw up, nor by how little sleep the captain got, how big the waves, nor how strong the wind. We use a much less subjective, tightly-controlled scientific measure, . . . the "dead squid on deck the next morning count". "How rough was it?" It was an twenty-one squid passage! That's how many of the poor inky, messy little octopeds we cleaned off the decks.

On the second night of our passage we invented a new method of dealing with the wet watch-keeping. We put in the hatch board, closed the sliding hatch and sat down below, napping on the leeward bunk. We set our wristwatches to alarm every 11 minutes (that's how long it takes for a container ship to travel from 5.5 nm out of sight over the forward horizon to run you down at about 30 knots convergence speed). We would then get up and turn on the radar (72 seconds to warm up), turn off the red back-lit instrument lights in the cockpit, slide back the main hatch and stand up to have a good 360 degree look-around. Then we would turn the instrument lights on, note the compass course, wind and boat speed and water depth (usually off the meters scale), and reclose the hatch.

We ate out, went sailing, shopped 'till the guys dropped (women seem to have additional adrenalin glands that kick in when shopping at boutiques and beach coaming), we yakked endlessly about who had done what back home, we walked and walked and walked and did a lot of sight-seeing in the old downtown area. Sue bought some very nice Mexican silver. It was a sad to finally say goodbye to these friends and there were abundant tears all around. We were depressed and subdued for about a week afterwards. We confess to having our first thoughts like "Do we really want to be here doing this? Wouldn't we rather be with our friends back home?".

So this is where we break this letter off. We are in slip 3-33, on the "water but no power" dock at Marina Mazatlan. We have begun the tedious process of recaulking Active Light's decks. That work is going much slower than anticipated, so we will probably be here well into April, but that tale will have to wait until the next letter. We apologize now for not answering email more promptly. It is now March 3rd, 2001 and we have not been on the Internet for over a month, since we posted the last letter in La Paz. That's just the way it works out when you are cruising. We will try to do better in the future, but who knows. Hey, we're retired!

Take care and thank you all for your love and support. The next letter will not be so long in coming and we will tell you more about the repairs and Mazatlan. We are planning a trip to some small mountain towns.