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suitable small-sized marine diesel engines. The first two of these appeared in Hong Kong late in 1950. In 1951 they were installed in purse-seiners belonging to Chan Lo of Aberdeen and Chung Fuk Hei of Kau Sai.
Their installation had some drawbacks. They were noisy, smelly engines which made a few people seasick at first, and they took up a great deal of room. In such cramped quarters the loss of storage and floor space entailed by taking over the largest hold amidships for the engine was a serious matter. Even worse, or at least more resented, was the cluttering up caused by the set of life belts that had to be carried now that the junks came under the Regulations for motorised craft. But these were small matters. Engines soon began to pay for themselves many times over and when it became possible to build houses ashore problems of storage space ceased to be a worry. Even from the very beginning, however, the price paid in discomfort (and even money) was seen to be worthwhile in terms of one completely over-riding good - safety.
This is a point that should be stressed. These South Chinese fishermen live and work on one of the most uncertain and dangerous of the world's seas. Brought up near the coast in England myself, and familiar with the traditional skills in weather forecasting of local fishermen there and their quiet confidence, I was at first surprised at the apparent ignorance of the Kau Sai Boat People and inclined to feel contemptuous of the unabashed apprehension with which they greeted what appeared to me to be even slightly rising winds. What I did not realise was that the weather in these waters is indeed largely unpredictable from local manifestations alone, and that, particularly in the typhoon season, the dangers are very real and can strike with astonishing speed. The objective situation is simply not comparable with that on the North Devon seaboard, and that is sometimes dangerous enough. Moreover, the Appledore boats of my childhood did not house whole families with women and children, most of whom could not swim, and all the family belongings, nor were they even in the 'thirties, when I had known them, dependent completely upon sail. Kau Sai junk masters had every justification for their caution. Mechanisation,