Docking a ship

Hoga and Nokomis might not have been the ones pushing Vestal around; they are merely two of the most famous tugs at Pearl due to the fact that they are still around. There were 8 Harbor tugs (YT) present and 1 motor tug (YMT).

You might want to check the following link out:

US Naval and Coast Guard warships in Hawaii, A ship roster: 14th Naval District

Anyway, on December 6th, Vetal was moved to Arizona's port side, as you can see from pictures  taken during the attack.

subfixer wrote:

I would bet that there weren't any in use in Pearl Harbor in 1941 either.

I would concur. I have NEVER seen a mule at Pearl or other period USN shipyards.

EdGrune wrote:

Yard and district craft of the immediate pre-war period would likely have been painted with a  black hull.  Superstructure would likely have been Standard Navy Gray #5.  Ocean Gray (5-O) wasn't ordered until the September, 1941 issue of SHIPS-2, the Navy's painting directions.  Ocean Gray was used during the war on yard & district craft, but these were low priority craft for getting them painted by December.   Refer to the picture I posted further up the thread of the garbage lighter spraying water on the burning West Virginia.  Black hull & gray superstructure.

You're wrong in the literal sense; 5-O was ordered at the end of July even though SHIPS-2 wasn't officially released until September. Additionally, the Navy decided to use up their old stocks of #5 Standard gray by mixing it with a tinting paste to approximate 5-D for smaller crafy; you can read about it in this memo I posted (paragraph 12). 

Two more pictures of the USCG Yard Sea Mule, from 1980.

guestimating from the pictures at hand, I'll back up subfixers guess ...

Tha sailor in the hatchway of the mule.  Assuming that the hatch is roughly 6 feet tall - the beam is just over 2 hatches wide -- call it 15 feet.

 See the magazine ad.   Assuming that the beam is 15 feet wide -- the length is about 2 beams long -- call it 30 feet.

You're talking about something which was similar in size to a LCVP -- 36 feet long.

A LCM-3 was 50 feet long.  A LCM-6 was 56 feet long.  

Yard and district craft of the immediate pre-war period would likely have been painted with a  black hull.  Superstructure would likely have been Standard Navy Gray #5. 

Ocean Gray (5-O) wasn't ordered until the September, 1941 issue of SHIPS-2, the Navy's painting directions.  Ocean Gray was used during the war on yard & district craft,  but these were low priority craft for getting them painted by December.   Refer to the picture I posted further up the thread of the garbage lighter spraying water on the burning West Virginia.  Black hull & gray superstructure.

The USCG mule was used at the USCG Yard in Curtis Bay (Balimore), MD to move some of the smaller boats around.  The curved metal piece at the bow is called a breakwater, and is a splash guard.  Most of the WWII era sea mules wouldn't have a curved breakwater like that. The mule is tied alongside the MESSENGER, an 85' ST tug from WWII. 

OK, I hope that the picture is visible, it is of the Chrysler. The dirty gray rectangular area aft of the two blue squares is where the pilot house stood. It has been cut away for the conversion that the owner is performing. You can see a dark area in the center of this rectangle where the helm console was installed. Sea mules are push boats but I can imagine that they could tow if they had to but aren't intended to do this. Sometimes they are used to move camels and caissons at times but these are tied alongside the sea mule, not pulled behind them. There isn't a lot of control with an object being towed. The predominent material for padding in the past was simply firehose nailed to the knees. The knees do extend into the water, about level with the keel. They do extend past the waterline. The bow is scow-like, it resembles the bow of a flatbarge. By the way, these boats are very powerful for their size but are geared and propellored for torque and not speed. They move at maybe 10 knots and leave a tremendous wake when at these speeds. I can't imagine why the owner of this thing wants to make a houseboat out it, they are loud, slow and the worst fuel hogs in the shipyard. Good luck to him.

EdGrune wrote:

65 air cav vn wrote: What are the two round things on either side of the pilothouse?  Thanks  Hank  Support the troops  Gary Owen raised scuttles to the engine compartment

65 air cav vn wrote:

What are the two round things on either side of the pilothouse?  Thanks  Hank  Support the troops  Gary Owen

raised scuttles to the engine compartment

Here's a picture of a sea mule at the USCG yard - http://images.military.com/fp-photos/pix2/00375_s.jpg.  

Go to this website for the photo:

http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/canada/gallery/40_october_19_2004.jpg

The pilot house is aft. Look at the photo above.