Andrew's Tug

[Andrew]

Hi everyone,

Thought you all might like see what I have been working on for the last couple of years. My wife have been sailors for quite a while now and it was time for a change. We looked around at a lot of designs and had decided to build a small trawler in the 24-26' range. Just before Christmas 6 years ago we found an unfinished tired old steel tug that could be a great start to this crazy idea.

The boat is 25' long with a 10' beam and was built in Hamilton, On by Hans Dehmel. We later find out that he has also built a 30' version and many steel and aluminum Bruce Roberts designs.

The boat was built with a steel hull and deck but it had a rotten old wood cabin. The decision was made to remove the cabin and rebuild something nice out of steel.

 

[MurrayM]

Welcome aboard

Looking forward to hearing more (and seeing more photo's) about your project!

 

[healhustler]

Great tug....I like it. The extended house still looks balanced and doesn't overwhelm the hull, IMO. I see a smoke stack in your future. Welcome aboard.

 

[Nomad Willy]

I like it a lot too. That must be a very roomy cabin. I'd like to see a new cabin not much unlike the old wood cabin. Just concentrate on details .. I would. Like bigger windows in the main solon. What power does she have?

 

[janice142]

She's cute! And steel too. Be still my heart.

As above, pictures and lots of them would be great.

 

[Conrad]

Looks very interesting! Not sure which way you went? Is the blue hull with the extended cabin the original, and the green hull in your avatar with the shortened (I think) cabin your updated version?

 

[Xsbank]

I had to laugh at the first aid kit - my boat is liberally covered in my blood. Why, just this morning, while wiring a light, my pocket knife slipped a bit and....

Great little boat! You will be on a steep learning curve if you've never welded, but what a great project. Lots of pictures required, please.

 

[O C Diver]

Welcome to the forum! Congratulations on your project! Lots of satisfaction in making it the way you want it.

Ted

 

[rwidman]

That's what I would call "salty". Nice looking boat. Best of luck with your project.

 

[Andrew]

So when we got the boat we decided the only thing we wanted to keep was the hull itself and the motor. It has a low hour Yanmar 3qm30, 33 hp with less than 200 hours.

So the welding and metal work was not an issue as I am a Tool and Die maker by trade, just need to make some time. Looking around at some other boats we decided to copy a cabin similar to the Nordic Tug.

The first job was to move the motor ahead about 4' by extending the engine beds. Next issue is that I wanted radius corners on everything so we decided to frame it in pipe and then inlay the panels flush. The steel work took about 2 months in the evening and weekends to get us ready for primer.

 

[Nomad Willy]

Andrew,
Have you got something aft to offset the engine coming 4' fwd? That's a significant shift in CG. Lucky for you if the boat had an aft weight bias before. Can you find out if she floated on her lines before? Have you got pics of her at full throttle? What does the PO say of such things.

The Nordic Tug configuration was a good choice IMO. You're also lucky you've got a boat that isn't overpowered. What I can see of the hull form I rather like so I'm lik'in the whole boat now.

 

[Andrew]

Moving the engine forward worked out well as it was a little stern heavy to begin with. Between moving tanks and other systems around to offset the weight, no additional trim ballast was required.

The boat moves along well being 12000 lbs full displacement, 6 knots and it burns 3 liters an hour. We may look at doing a repower later as I am not too happy with the current transmission configuration.

 

[Nomad Willy]

Andrew,
Let me guess .. it's a Kansaki.

Great to hear the CG is good.

Those engines are good IMO. I it noise from the gear after it warms up that's displeasing you? Mine on our previous boat was so noisy I was embarresed to return to port. I fixed it though.

Is the gear ratio good for the boat and engine?

 

[Bluto]

The cabin is sweet, the proportions look just right.
Nice work! What a good looking, stout girl she is.

 

[Peter B]

That's going to be the cutest wee boat going round. Cute, but also purposeful...

 

[Marlinmike]

Awesome work, congrat's!

 

[Andrew]

Your right it does have the kanzaki transmission, at low speeds with little load it sounds like a bag of hammers. We changed the damper plate and it helped but it still rattles though. My real issue is that it is a 2:1 ratio driving into a secondary 1.5:1 reduction then to the prop shaft. This was done by the builder on almost all of his boats he built for some reason.

My plan going forward would be a new Beta 43 with an aquadrive shaft assembly, though I did manage to pick up a nice Isuzu 56 hp with 155 hours on it.

 

[markpierce]

 

[Nomad Willy]

Andrew,
I came fairly close to getting that same Isuzu but concluded it was too much power for my boat. My boat is 30' long and displaces 8 tons. My 37hp Mitsu gives me 5hp per ton disp ... More than enough power. 4hp would be enough. I also passed up the 47hp Mitsu that was rather heavy duty and developed it's power at 2500rpm. The 37hp Mitsu S4L2 was close enough. A 33hp shorter stroke version was available and I know now I would have been satisfied w that but if I had it to do over again I'd get the S4L2. My cruising rpm (2300) is 700 down from rated rpm (3000) .. nice and smooth and have no noise issues.
My Willard is a FD boat so if your hull is SD the above is not applicatable but I suspect your disp is closer to 6 or 7 tons.


Anyway I had a special damper plate on my Yanmar too w some plastic cam like parts. But the solution to the problem was to get ($700) a bronze gear on gear pump to circulate the oil in the transmission through an oil cooler and back. I utilized the oil drain plug as a return port. I also used several kinds of oil including heavy sticky oil and synthetic oil to keep the viscosity up there .. way up there. It worked. A lot of trouble and no small amount of money for a small boat (25' Albin). Ran the boat for about 4 years that way.

If I were you (and I'm not) I'd find a good 2.5-1 gear that bolts up to your engine. A 17 or 18" prop will work nicly w that gear. You've got a very good engine and probably w the right amount of power.
What problems do you experience w the double reduction set up? The Yanmar has very soft engine mounts so I suspect you could have some alignment problems. Consider British R&D or Austrailian Poly Flex mounts that alow far less movement and very likely will be better at vibration control.

I re-read your post and see you already have the big Isuzu. Since you do I'd run it. It's a very good engine and you could (perhaps) use the 2-1 gear that you already have. Your boat is going to go as fast as you want whether you have a 2-1 or a 3-1 or a 2.5-1 gear. It's going to burn about exactly one gph in any event unless you overdrive your hull. 2-1 will work. I'm not saying it's perfect but you probably won't notice the difference. The smaller prop may run smoother too. Something to consider. You've got plenty of work to do w the cabin.

 

[gaston]

That Tug has beautiful lines to it

 

[Andrew]

The way the boat is configured now it has a 20x17 prop with a total reduction of 3:1, the problem with the yanmar is that the bellhousing is part of the transmission and is very difficult to modify or buy parts for. The secondary reduction is made by walter, they make the v drive assembly's for everyone. The walter reduction is bolted down solid and takes all the prop load acting as a thrust bearing, then it has a extension shaft running to the engine. This setup is similar to an aquadrive as the motor can shake on it's mounts and none of the vibration is transmitted to the hull.

Going forward after running it now for about 5 years and knowing that parts are becoming difficult to source for the yanmar especially the gear, I am starting to think that my last project may be a repower.

The boat could do with a little more power as we would like to head down into the St Lawrence and dealing with currents we would like to have a little extra power.

The motor I bought is an Isuzu C240 56 hp with 155 hours on it. The motor now has a new circulation pump, injectors, balmar 110 amp alternator, heat exchanger, Zf 25m 2.74 gear and some shiny 2 part paint. All into the motor I have about $3500 Cdn. No matter what motor I choose I still need to buy an aquadrive assembly.

 

[Pack Mule]

This is a good looking tug and a great thread . The new design for living space is proportioned nicely . I would like to add some more indoor living space to William . I think I could do the work but I need someone to design it so it looks right . That's where I fall short . Yours looks really good . It's difficult to make a design look good from all angles . There is always an angle that things just look a little funky but not on this little tug . Keep up the work .

 

[Andrew]

Thanks Pack Mule,

So now all the steel work is done with interior framing and tabbing in place, We built the cabin to allow the installation of 1" insulation.

July became very wet and we decided to make a enclosure and cover it in shrink wrap - Do you know how hard it is to buy shrink wrap in July!

All metal work has been ground and prepped for the first coat of epoxy primer before any fillers.

 

[O C Diver]

Very Nice! Had a steel 42' charter boat 23 years ago. Brings back memories. I probably have "chasing rust" nightmares tonight.

Ted

 

[CPseudonym]

July...

Did you blog this refit somewhere or are you just posting up now? Either way I like it a lot.

 

[Andrew]

I just decided to post this now.....Been meaning to do this for some time.

So it happened to be a warm October that allowed us to get some paint on the boat. We used an industrial 2 part acrylic urethane same as Awlcraft 2000. Between inside and outside we used 12 gallons of paint and primer, not including interprotect and non skid.

We decided to try out Kiwi grip for the non skid surfaces, we were the first ones in the Toronto area to try it. Well after 6 years with proper surface prep the stuff is incredible!

 

[CPseudonym]

Stout looking samson post and backing for the anchor roller.

 

[Andrew]

So continuing on with this we now have 6 coats of interprotect and bottom paint on the boat, stripes are painted and the window install begins. I went with windows from a company in Vancouver called AJR, even with the shipping costs no one could come close to their pricing.

The interior is well underway with the teak& holly installed and some of the basics have been framed up.

The biggest problem with this build was thinking 10 steps ahead to catch all the little things. It was kinda nice having a clean slate to start with rather than trying to patch up the old stuff.

 

[Nomad Willy]

Andrew,
The fifth picture down looks a lot like Marks Coot. That's a compliment.

 

[O C Diver]

Andrew, really nice paint job! Definitely appreciate your attention to process detail. Without quality paint work, the best steel construction is just rust waiting to happen.

Ted