It all began in 1974 with the gas crunch. Dan's friends were giving him a bad time about our gas-guzzler pickup and camper and were wondering what he would do if he couldn't get enough gas for the thing. He replied that if the crunch got bad enough, he would just build himself a steam car. "What do you know about building a steam car?" they asked. "I don't know anything about it," he answered, "but I'll bet you that in two weeks, in my spare time, I can make one!" And he did! Having his own machine shop helped. Now this steam car wasn't exactly licensable for the road, you understand. Someone once described it as looking like a cross between a motorcycle and a moonshine still. Still, Dan knew most of the cops in town and they let him run it up and down the road in front of the machine shop a few times without hassling him about those pesky details like lights, bumpers, seatbelts, and brakes. On one of these outings a photographer from the local paper happened by and asked if he could take a picture. In a couple of days he was on the front page of newspapers from Rio de Janeiro to London! Steam Car Photo

Later that year we happened upon the Northwest Steam Society's summer meet at LaConner, Washington. Dan looked at a couple of steam cars there, but was more intrigued with steamboats. So much for a steam automobile - we were going to have a steamboat!

Before long he had found an old 20' hull with a tunnel drive - a "kicker boat". It had been lying upside down under some trees on Camano Island for years. The owner of the property said he could have it, and Cinder Ella was born. The engine and boiler came from the steam car, and she burned Presto-Logs for fuel. She was non-condensing and spent most of her time on Lake Stevens, where neighbors around the lake came out to wave at the sound of her chuffing. On a couple of occassions we ran out of fuel and had to raid a friend's woodpile to get home. Cinder Ella Photo

In 1978 we upgraded to a little larger and more seaworthy boat; a 23' double ended, lapstrake, Coast Guard hull we got from the Sea Scouts. Dan designed and built a 3"+ 6"x 4" steeple compound engine for it, and we ran on propane. This was the first Mosquito. She proved her seaworthiness when we were caught in a storm with 70-knot winds in August of 1980. In 1981 we made a Babcock-Wilcox type water-tube boiler for her. Mosquito 1 Photo

The next year, 1982, we sold her hull and bought the old Lucifer, a 1945 Coast Guard Motor Surf Boat. She was just like our old Mosquito, lapstrake and double ended, but at 26', she was 3' longer. We put an oil-burner in her, but with the old engine and boiler, she was still Mosquito to us, so we kept the name. We had her for 13 years and had many adventures, including a stint in the movies when they filmed "Maverick" down on the Columbia River. Through it all she performed like a trooper. In 1992 we managed to hit a submerged piling and sank her on a sandbank. All her ribs had long since been repaired with at least one "sister", and that piling zippered out three or four of those ribs. After a couple of years thinking about rebuilding the hull, we decided to just fair up the old one and use it as a plug to make a fiberglass mold.... And so, in 1996, the current Mosquito was born, or perhaps, "hatched". Mosquito Today Photo

When the movie people contacted us in June, 1996 with an order for 4 of the Mosquito hulls to be used in the made-for-TV movie "Titanic", we decided to incorporate as Mosquito Enterprises, Inc. The hull and engine we offer are duplicates of our own Mosquito, and a 100 sq.ft. boiler will shortly follow. We wish our customers many good times and happy adventures. Our own ongoing experiences will continue to be reflected in our products. Full Steam Ahead!

Marian Martin, November 2000