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Old 11-15-2014, 11:50 PM   #1
dannc
Guru
 
City: NC
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 1,350
Photos from the Duck Nest

We visited Doumen China recently to see the Diesel Ducks at Seahorse Marine. We had a great visit and it solidified what we wanted in a Duck. I took 500-600 photos, shockingly, I should have taken more! There is one area of the DD that I swear I took a few photos but I cannot find them which is very frustrating. As I look at other photos I wish I had taken over images from different view points. Oh, well....

One of the many reasons for the visit was to see a DD 462, hull 14, that will be leaving Seahorse in the next few months along with the first DD 542. There is a yet to be built 492 model that we are very interested in buying and the best comparison of the DD 492 is to look at the 462 and 542. The 462 is certainly not a small boat by any measure but I wish it was slightly larger in a few places. Mainly an extra foot or so amidships in the engine room which would also add space to the galley and pilot house. The 492 adds not quite a foot amidships, almost a foot in the salon and the rest in the forward stateroom. I wish more room was added amidships in the DD 492 but other than that it is a really nice design with only a few tweaks I would want to make in the deck plan.

We met Bill, one of the owner's of Seashorse at the May Trawlerfest, and it was great to finally meet his wife Stella. We had me Moby Duck's owner, hull 14, Trawlerfest and he was a great help in getting to Doumen. We also met a number of Seahorse employees and learned quite a bit more about DDs.

We had about five days at the boat yard and we needed more time. There are a number of boats being built that I did not visit! We did not want to get in the way of the workers so we limited our boat visiting time to when the workers were not on board which meant visiting the boats at lunch time and after hours. We did spend very valuable time with Bill, Stella and Moby Duck's owner learning about China and DDs which was certainly more valuable than visiting the other boats. But not visiting those other boats is driving me nuts now that we are back in the states.

I will post what I think are the interesting photos of the DD's as I process them over the next few weeks. To start with there is the Moby Duck, a red 462 and hull number one of the 542 which is painted blue.

DD462 Moby Duck


DD 54201


If you look closely at the DD 542 and DD 462, you will notice that the 542 is a flush deck while the 462 has a cabin. You notice the extra steps going from the pilot house on the 542 into the salon but it is not a big deal. I really like the 542 flush deck. One thing we did notice in the 542 pilot house is that the 542 bow is higher than the 462 and blocks a bit more of the view forward than compared to the 462. Not a big deal but something we noticed. For us the 542 is just a BIT too large, the 462 is a BIT too small, so the 492 should be Goldilocks, i.e., Just Right.

Later,
Dan
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