a neighbor's friend was looking to find a home for this little white cat, so I took her on board, she's smaller than most cats and very gentle, but one evening, climbing into my v berth to eat my supper while watching the tube, I got this funny feeling someone was watching me, as I looked around, by my right shoulder, was a rat sitting on some vcr tapes, about a foot from my head, I said to it, what are you doing here, in a low loud voice, it took off fwd. towards the tv,now if I've got a cat, what the hell, how did i get the rat, I got out of the berth, gabec the dirty white girl and put her in the v berth, the race was on and now the three of us are in the main cabin and she's got it cornered by her litter box, now she just wants to play with it, so how do I catch it without gettin bit, I seen my trusty old orange B&D 12v vac, with a 1 &1/2" dia hose, turned it on, walked to the cornered rat, sucked it's face in the hose and while the rat watched me i walked to the companionway, leaned over the side and shut the switch off, and the rat was now doing the paddle towards the mangroves,well, I skolded the cat, but it didn't help, she has brought me an additional 37 more, one was half het size, now these are rats that measure 7 to 9" body, the tail is another 8" long, the one half her size, I had to bash it's head in with an open turnbuckle, it was just too big, bled like a pig, oh, my co habit friend, the dirty white girl also brought me a 20" snake, fortunately, it was dead, or I would have left the boat, i called her dirty white girl because she's under cars and gets oil stains.