E16@telus.net writes: >Instead of a sculling oar, the Thais use a steel pipe attached to a >gimbal >at the stern. It projects forward about 2 metres, and is the >"tiller" that >the boatman controls. Directly above the gimbal they mount a small >car >engine, bolt a steel drive shaft at the rear where the clutch face >would >be, and attach a prop to the end of that shaft. In an earlier life, before my 20th Birthday, I belonged to the local lifesaving society in my hometown in Germany. We had one powered rescue boat that was actually an ex German Navy landing craft. It had a propulsion setup just like you describe it: A long contraption mounted to the stern with some sort of gimbal connection and consisting of an aircraft engine directly coupled to a shaft and propeller. The driver would stand and wrestle with the unit to use it as propulsion and steering. Very noisy, very heavy and very fast. Great fun when you tilted the whole thing so the prop just partially came out of the water: FANTAIL, FUNTAIL! Only we didn't call it YULOH.... George of Scaramouche with a nice quiet (and slow) Fairymann - inboard of course.