I’m building a boat in my back yard. It’s a Godzilla 25 mini-tug designed by Sam Devlin.
- Length 24′-8″
- Beam 9′-0″
- Draft 2′-9″
- Displacement 5800 lbs.
The construction technique is stitch-and-glue plywood. I started the project in late 2006 and I’m hoping for a launch by 4th of July 2008 – about 18 months. (Updated May 20, 2008 – changed the links above to point to Sam’s new site, and my new estimated time of completion to early Spring 2009. It’s just a little more work than I had planned 
)
You can contact me at:
tom at tomlarkin dot net
View my other site at Zoomatron.com. View nautical charts on the web (and other assorted weirdnesses with Virtual Earth).
There might be a theme here…
Hi,
I’m very interested in your project. Although I plan to build a Mal Low 21′ Tug. Do you have the construction of the hull somewhere on your site?
I couldn’t get to it, or maybe it’s just me?
anyway, looks like you are doing a fine job.
Thanks.
Comment by Bob — August 3, 2008 @ 10:32 pm
Hi Bob,
Thanks for reading my blog. At the bottom of each page there is a link – ‘Earlier entries’. The page with the hull construction is this one:
http://boatbuild.wordpress.com/page/4/. I followed the Sam Devlin book and plans very closely, and the hull went together pretty quickly. One additional thing I did was to mark _every_ line and location on both sides of all the panels before they went together. These came in handy later on.
I looked at the Mal Low tugs, but decided they had a little too much ‘character’ even for me, although I really like the Powder Puff’r design with the open space forward of the pilothouse. What material are you going to make the hull from?
If you’re looking for tug design ideas, I made 3 pages with lots of photos. I look at these all the time, asking how real tug builders did it: http://boatbuild.wordpress.com/2007/09/16/small-tugboat-pictures/
— Tom
Comment by tomlarkin — August 4, 2008 @ 11:09 am
Thanks for the info, I was going to buiild in steel, but I’m a woodworker and have built several cold- molded boats so I’m going to build in ply/ epoxy.
the hull shape is very similar to what I’m going to do with the Mal Low design.
You’re doing a terrific job, the craftsmanship really shows. I’ll be following your progress.
Bob
Comment by Bob — August 10, 2008 @ 8:12 pm
Looks great. Can you tell me how much height was needed to build this boat? Also, can you email me your design drawings because I would like to review the changes that you made because these look like great layout changes. Thanks
Comment by Brian Hackford — September 2, 2008 @ 7:44 am
Hi Brian,
My tent is 11 1/2 feet high to the peak. That leaves almost 3 feet over the pilothouse. Any less room, and it would be difficult to finish the top.
I’m embarrased to say I have no design drawings. At each step where I deviated from the plans I made a mockup of the structure in the boat, tweaked the dimensions for a few days, and then built the actual parts.
The main departure from the plans is the stern. I made the outboard well run from the stern to station #5. The outboard actually mounts to the #5 bulkhead, tripled up. I can take some measurements if you want. Of course, I have no idea how this will work. Sam Devlin is a little concerned about how well it’ll turn. I may need to add skegs.
Are you building a Godzilla? I’m always happy to answer any questions about it.
Comment by tomlarkin — September 3, 2008 @ 10:25 pm
Just wanted you to know how much I enjoy and appreciate your blog.
I am presently building a Bolger Champlain – an outboard powered, 22 foot trawler. Sleeps 2, enclosed marine head, full galley, standing headroom, stich and glue.
It’s neat watching how you’ve solved problems. Re: your sliding doors. I’m wondering about the hardware and I’m not sure how to best go about it. I’ll watch for your solution.
Thanks for your efforts!
Comment by Bill — December 26, 2008 @ 9:36 am