Docking a ship

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.  

The 75 footer I was referring to was the LCM 8. It was a later boat. I just looked it up, it was introduced in 1959.

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

Man! That thing sure does have a low freeboard. It looks like it is sinking aft.

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). 

OK, I looked over several high-resolution scans I have of Pearl Harbor in 1941 and afterwards and there are no mules present. California being pushed into drydock after raising is being shepherded by tugs and a bunch of *rowboats* (not towing, presumably serving as extra eyes). You can scratch those out. If you want to do a quad of famous ships, do Hoga and Nokomis pushing Vestal in.

 What location were the Haga And Nakomis pushing the Vestal too? Thanks Hank Support the troops Gary Owen

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.