Ship Modelers Database
Carol Moran
Sunk as an artificial reef off New Jersey in 1990
Carol Moran was a diesel-electric harbor tugboat built in 1949 for the Moran Towing Company of New York, one of the most recognizable small Moran-fleet tugs and today a popular subject for scale ship modelers via commercial kits.
Kits of this ship
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Plans
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Build logs
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Resources
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- Mystic Seaport Museum Collections: Tugboats subject listing (Rosenfeld Collection)Museum
Lists multiple 1950s-60s Rosenfeld and Sons photographs of the tug CAROL MORAN docking ocean liners and freighters in New York Harbor, useful for confirming operational history and hull/superstructure appearance.
History
Specifications
Built by the Levingston Shipbuilding Company of Orange, Texas (hull #444) and designed by Joe Hack, she was part of a five-ship class of diesel-electric tugs nicknamed "Moran's Cadillacs," with sisters Grace Moran, Barbara Moran, Doris Moran, and Moira Moran. She was a single-screw vessel powered by a Cleveland 16-278A diesel-electric engine rated at roughly 1,750 horsepower.
Service history
Carol Moran worked ship-docking and towing assignments in New York Harbor for decades; period photographs document her assisting ocean liners and freighters such as the SANUKI MARU and docking the steamships FENSAL and AFRICAN ENTERPRISE in the early 1950s, often alongside sister tugs. After a fire in 1987 ended her commercial career, she was donated to New Jersey's artificial reef program and deliberately sunk as a reef on July 17, 1990.
Notable facts
The tug is best known among modelers through the Dumas Products line, which offers her as both a 17.75-inch 1:72 scale R/C kit and a 50-inch 1:24 scale "jumbo" R/C kit, making her one of the most widely built small harbor-tug subjects in the hobby. Multiple build logs and videos of both kit scales exist online, useful for modelers comparing detailing approaches.