Born in 1926 modeler Tom Gorman spent many hours as a child on ships with his father who was a Marine Chief Engineer. He formed his own engineering company in the early 1960's that he closed in the early 1970's
Having always built models of railway locomotives and ships he eventually gravitated to making model ship kits in the name of Marvon Models and sold the range of kits in 1994 so that he could concentrate his efforts on building ship models commissioned by a number of ship owners. In 1997 he produced his first of five current books "Working Scale Model Merchant Ships" and continues writing and building models today.
Tom is also a Class 'A' judge for the Model Power Boat Association in the U.K. and occasionally gives talks to model boat clubs on building models. Virtually all of the models that Tom builds are of modern and often brand new ships that he is able to visit and photograph to ensure the accuracy of the build. Though most are static models he does build a small percentage of working models as well on request.
His current model at the time of this writing is of the Pilot Cutter called 'Pathfinder' currently detailed in the July edition of the magazine "Model Boats".
At age 81 (at the time of this writing), Tom is still going strong with no sign of retirement in the near future. Such is the joy of being able to do something you have a true passion for.
Click on images to view larger picture
Builders Notes:
The model is some 38 inches in length with a beam of 11 inches.
Though a static build he estimates that if it were a working model it would ballast out around 40 pounds.
Some of the materials used in the build: POF construction using 6.0mm thick birch plywood, planks of 3.0mm thick birch plywood covered with 0.5mm thick styrene sheet and the superstructure is made of styrene sheet of various thicknesses.
The windlass and the towing winch are mainly made of turned timeber (mainly boxwood) with styrene attachments and the crane is assembled from various sises of styrene and brass tube. All fittings with few exceptions were made in Toms workshop.
The model was build concurrently with the construction of the actual Tug so Tom had the pleasure of being able to make frequent visits to the shipyard to see the progress made in the building of the actual Tug, take pictures and make notes to take back to his workshop.
The Model of the Afon Alaw was presented to the owners by the builders at time of completion.
When I built the model the timber hull was used to make a mould for future hulls in g.r.p. These hulls with drawings, materials and many fittings are now available from Mobile Marine Models, The Boat Shed, Highcliffe Park, Ingham Cliff, Lincoln, LN1 2YQ U.K. Telephone 01522 730731 they only supply direct to modellers and their service is very good. It does make into a very good model and can easily be made operational as there is a great deal of space in the hull for motors, batteries and electronic gear.
The Real Tug/Workboat Afon Alaw
Immediately below is a picture of the actual "Afon Alaw" and some statistical data kindly provided to us by Holyhead Towing of the U.K. owners of the Tug.
Type: Twin screw shallow draft seagoing tug/workboat
Classification: Lloyds + 100A1 Tug LMC
Built: Hepworth Shipyard, Paull, UK 2003/2004
LOA: 25.5m Beam: 9.0m Draft: 2.4m
Main Engines: 2 x Cummins KTS 38M2 engines, total 2600 bph, ZF gearboxes, box cooling and fixed Kort Nozzles.
Bollard Pull: 34 Tonnes Speed: 11.2 knots
Deck Equipment:
- split drum anchor handling and towing winch, 45 tonnes pull @ 9m/min, capacity 400m x 33mm towing wire
- 3.5m stern roller with hydraulic guide pins.
- Powered storage reel in hold
- 90t/m Heila HLRM 90/55 hydraulic crane, capacity 29.7 tonne @ 2.89 to 5.1 tonne @ 13.37m
- 2 x Cummins 50 kVA gensets
- Cummins diesel hydraulic powerpack
- Kort KT 150 bow thruster
- High lift rudders
- Fuel and freshwater supply pumps
- Hardwood covered working deck
- Demountable 30 tonne 'A' frame
- 35 tonne tow hook.
Books by Tom Gorman
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| Working Scale Model Merchant Ships | Scale Model Ship Propulsion |
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| Finishing Scale Ship Models | The Ship Model Builders Handbook |
Scale Model Tugs and Trawlers
You can get any of them from the
Model Ship Builder Bookstore
