CONTINUOUSWAVE

We were just in the South Pacific in an archipelago about 650-miles from the closest continent. We saw many local boats used for tourism were powered with modern engines, and those engines were mostly Yamaha and Suzuki four-stroke-power-cycle engines. No sign of a Mercury or an Evinrude.

These boats were not used for subsistence fishermen; they catered to tourists.

There were a few local fishing boats, but I neglected to perform a proper survey of their choice for propulsion power.

The archipelago is very much oriented toward ecology and preservation, so it was not surprising that all the boats had modern engines with excellent emission ratings.

When I travel abroad, I most often see Yamaha-brand outboard engines, but they are the fabulous, oil-injected, carburetor two-stroke Yamaha engines that used to be common here when they were introduced in the 1980's. They were sooo good that not only are the older ones still in wide use, but it appears they have basically continued making them in places with a little less authoritarian governance. I just got back from Australia and these carburetor Yamaha engines were everywhere, and while some were from the 1980's, many looked much much newer. I observe the same thing in France. It's as if the carburetor two-stroke engine, after decades of work by all manufacturers, was perfected by Yamaha, and in the places where corrupt politics have not outlawed them they still flourish with their combination of minimum (not zero) smoke, reliable just-right oiling, and inexpensive purchase and operating.

-Peter