Hercules Tug Ship - 1907 Low-poly 3D model

This 3d drawing is a scale reproduction of the Historical Tug Hercules, presentely recovered and shown in San Francisco.

The History: 1n 1907 two ocean going tugs were ordered by The Shipowners Towboat Company of San Francisco to John Dialogue and Sons of Camden, New Jersey.

Hercules and her sister Goliah were within the first riveted steel hull Tugs, in a period when the majority of tugs, also smaller, were still built in wood. They were 150 feet long, powered by a triple expansion (three cylinders) steam engine of 1000 horsepower. Their steam towing whinch was designed to handle 1200feet of 1 3/4 inch steel wire towing cable.

Hercules Tug started her operations towing all around America, from New Jersey to San Francisco throgh the Strait of Magellan, her sister Goliah.

She was operational in the Ocean until 1922 towing oil tank barges, disabled steamers and performing continuous harbour activity; she also participeted to the building of Panama Channel, towing lock gates and crossing the Canal to deliver a dredge to Jacksonville, Florida.

In 1922, purchased by The Western Pacific Railroad, continued her activity in the Bay of San Francisco, mainly for railroad services, until 1962.

Languishing for some years in the Oakland Estuary, in 1975 she became finally part of the U.S. Historic Fleet docked at the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco. Restored to full operational by teams of vounteers, and operating in the sea several times a year, she was designated in 1986 as a National Historic Landmark as the only oceangoing steam tug on the West Coast.

The maintenance project of the Tug is part of the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), a long range program to document historically significant engineering works in the United States.

This Model has been drawn independentely as an artistic work basing on blueprints published by HAER, to whom I give my thanks for the very detailed drawings.

All objects part of the Model, individually named in english, have been grouped for operarative simplicity into three groups only: Hull, Cabins and Accessories. Many textures images have been used to apply materials to the Model, the full set of which has been included with every different format file, supplied in zipped mode.

Sea and landscape has not been included in the files, but relevant images used for the supplied artistic renderings are part of the given textures.

The inside of the ship is empty, except a rough representation of the triple expansion steam engine and the rudder wheel and compass.