Higgins 78' 20th scale PT Boat Hull

Huckins 78' (PT 95)

The 3D model (as at September 2024)

Having completed the Vosper Hull I have decided to do a Huckins 78' PT boat hull for historical completeness. These were built in fairly small numbers (some 18 boats) during WW2 at the Huckins plant in Florida, However Huckins have a long history of building many luxury pleasure craft even before WW2 and still do today.

There is very little detail available for the Huckins PT boat hull in terms of lines, frame drawings etc. and it seems, from much research, that Huckins is not interested in publishing anything on the history of these famous boats and have seemingly refused many requests from renowned researchers and writers alike. That, I find, is a really sad state of affairs but I suppose they have their reasons!

According to many reports the Huckins hull seems to have outperformed all of the Elco and Higgins designs and seemingly had the best riding characteristics of all.

A quote from https://arbus.com/a-huckins-legacy-of-mermaids-war-boats/

------ Frank Pembroke Huckins, founder of Jacksonville’s own Huckins Yacht Corporation. Invented by the man himself, the PT boats’ Quadroconic planing hull was revolutionary at the time, allowing the craft to “plane” above the water and, therefore, maintain greater speeds. Before this contribution, the boats would repeatedly pound into the waves, resulting not only in slower speeds but, over time, a gradual destruction of the boat. Huckins Corporation, a family-owned business established in 1928 in Springfield, built eighteen production PT boats for the U.S. Navy during World War II. ------

There is one drawing out there of what seems to be an experimental 82 foot Huckins PT boat, drawn by Frank Huckins in 1941 in which the engines were the same as the Elco and Higgins boats - Packard V12 M2500's but had four of them, in two separated engine rooms, rather than the three engines that were installed in Elco's, Higgins and the 18 production built Huckins 78' PT boats, all Huckins PT's had engines direct driving the propeller shafts, so like the Higgins, no vee drive gearboxes.

Just my thoughts but it may well have been that the 82 foot long boat exceeded the 80 foot maximum length, that the Navy later specified, but that is just pure speculation on my part. The 18 "production" PT boats that were subsequently built for the Navy by Huckins were all 78' long.

So I have re-drawn the 82' experimental Huckins Boat as faithfully as I can and then converted it to the 78' length with just one engine room and three Packards and the other respective published Huckins production dimensions in order to make a 1/20th scale model of PT95. Even PT95 seems to have been somewhat of a prototype and the design may not have fully settled until at least PT102, if ever! There are two versions of the cockpit on PT95 photo's, so at some point the boat was re-fitted with a later model open style bridge and either at that time, or even later, fitted with Roll Off Racks for the torpedoes and radar.

For a larger version click here or on the image above

My thanks to Andy Small for his assistance with "below deck" layout, photographic and dimensional details.