Ship Modelers Database
Seguin (1884 steam tug)
Scrapped
Seguin was a wooden-hulled steam tugboat built in 1884 at Bath, Maine, and is frequently cited by model manufacturers as one of the longest-serving wooden steam tugboats in American maritime history, with a working career spanning roughly 83 years. She is a popular subject for scale modelers thanks to detailed kits produced by BlueJacket Shipcrafters (1:48) and Midwest/Model Expo (1:32).
Kits of this ship
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Plans
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Build logs
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Resources
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- Wikipedia: Maine Maritime MuseumWebsite
Background on the Bath, Maine museum that acquired and attempted to restore Seguin; useful for institutional/provenance context.
History
Specifications
Build logs researched from Maine Maritime Museum records describe her as about 88 feet long with a beam of roughly 20 feet, originally fitted with a 26-inch x 26-inch surface condenser steam engine; she was re-engined in 1909 with a compound triple-expansion engine of about 275 shp giving a top speed near 12 knots. She carried a crew of about seven (captain, mate, engineer, two firemen, a cook, and a deckhand). Note that some retailer listings give larger length figures (around 100 feet) and conflicting rigging/construction details, so dimensions should be cross-checked against primary museum sources before finalizing a build.
Service history
Built for the Knickerbocker Steam Towage Company, Seguin spent roughly her first two decades towing wooden sailing vessels up and down the Kennebec River in summer and towing barges of coal, lumber, and ice along the Atlantic coast in winter. She later worked as a harbor tug on the Hudson River for the Cornell Towing Company of New York before returning to serve Maine ports for the remainder of her career, finally retiring from active service in 1967.
Notable facts
After retirement, Seguin was eventually acquired for preservation by the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, which began a restoration intended to return her to her original 1884 appearance. According to the kit manufacturer's historical notes, the restoration ultimately found her hull too deteriorated to save, and the museum scrapped the vessel. Modelers researching rigging details (e.g., towing lights, masts, and a rooster weathervane rather than the more typical eagle on the pilothouse) have relied on period photographs held by the museum, since no color photography exists from her construction era.