I was trailing behind a huge car towing a speed boat and its outboard engine in Brunei.
The term horse power is probably an old term many younger people who not be able to connect with it.
In the olden days youngsters were used to thinking in terms of horse power. It was was originally defined as the amount of power that a horse could provide.
Our Chinese mind is quite connected with horse power. It is recorded in San Guo Zhi (The History of the Three Kingdoms) that Han Ji advocated Shui Pai: “Horse power was used at a very early time and every time, one hundred horse would be needed for igniting coal and blowing up the fire; then horse power was replaced by manpower, but it needed too much manpower ...
The earliest outboard engines in Sarawak could probably be only 5 horse power called Eagle. Evinrude, Johnson, Yanmar, Yamaha, Mercury were other brands.
The Hua Hong Ice Factory had a small motor launch and a long boat with a fairly small powered outboard engine. There was another small long boat owned by one of the Malay employee who would take other staff members across the river and for other emergency uses. My grandfather did not like to use the long boat, although according to some stories, he preferred the more sturdy motor launches which provided daily trips from Sibu. Being a frugal man,he was not keen to spend too much money on running outboard engines. However we often wondered if he was a good swimmer or not.
But we know for a fact that my father was a good swimmer.
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