Pull rope evinrude the outboard dragon fly engine maybe??? Super reliable for dugout canoe ocean cruising.....
Not far off, 1981, actually the dugout was about 30ft long and 6ft wide BUT carved from a single tree trunk ergo a "dugout". No cover of any sort, maybe five or six flat planks as seats. These guys were professional mariners, fishermen, IIRC the outboard mounted was a 55 horse Mercury (??), they had a second 25 horse spare stowed inboard, a 55 gallon drum of water, and a bunch of extra gas.
The occasion was we was all teachers, and Peace Corps required us to meet during the big school vacation to "discuss teaching" so it was arranged we meet at Dixcove (ya I know) on the coast where we stayed in a pretty much all OEM slavers' castle, cannons and everything.
Turns out of the eight people supposed to attend, four were too sick with various Tropical ailments to travel so only four guys showed, just enough to occupy a table at the local dive, which was often how such things were conducted.
Ghanaians are real friendly to outsiders and they would politely ask in their language "Obruni, Where are you going" which is the equivalent to our "Hey White guy, how's it going". I would always reply "Me'n coh bibiyaa ni me'n n'yeh Obruni, me yeh au Bibibini" which mean "I ain't going nowhere and I ain't White, I'm African". Which of course caused them to erupt in peals of laughter. In the following conversation I would always reveal myself to be an actual Prince, a member of the Ashanti Royal Family from up in Kumasi, which was very funny in that context.
So these guys who were fishermen asked me if I wanted to go fishing with 'em the next day so I did. We rolled out at noon and headed straight south, perpendicular to the coast (all the while me hoping that throwing the White guy overboard out at sea weren't some sort of religious protocol ). I estimated our speed to be a steady 7mph, the days at that latitude (5 deg. N) are pretty much always 12 hours long, and we rolled until sunset. Six hours times seven mph comes out to 42 miles, but I always round down to be conservative. We was far enough out occasionally to see the lights of passing ships that night.
They all slept on the planks, getting up occasionally to bail the canoe, I slept on the hull way up on the prow, seasick as a dog. My blanket was wet and it was only about 60F out so I was actually shivering. But OMG the stars..... darkest skies I've ever seen, way up there with the desert Southwest.
This was WAY before digital photography but a buddy with a camera took a photo when we got back showing a considerably younger and skinnier (135lbs! it was the diet) me standing next to the canoe and the crew. I got a digital copy now but not on this notebook I'm on. I'll post it tomorrow.
"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
). I estimated our speed to be a steady 7mph, the days at that latitude (5 deg. N) are pretty much always 12 hours long, and we rolled until sunset. Six hours times seven mph comes out to 42 miles, but I always round down to be conservative. We was far enough out occasionally to see the lights of passing ships that night.