"The Big Fitz" The Early Stages 

The hull is scratch built out of 2-inch foam, and 1/8-inch plywood. Then finished with a layer of fiberglass, and hoped to be painted with paint supplied by Olgebay Norton Co. themselves, actual paint used on the Fitzgerald.

She's powered by a 12-volt system, 750 electric motor. Working bow thruster and ballast tanks, with two bilge pump motors. The ballast tanks holding up to 12 gallons of water. All this water is needed to get the model to ride like she's full. I actually built a pool in my basement out of milk crates and a large tarp to test this out. The weight of the model is about 40 pounds empty, gross weight around 150 pounds. 

If you look close you can see a 1 inch PVC pipe running from bow to stern. This will allow me to run the electrical system for the bow thruster and lighting. Also notice the very small pipes running from the ballast tank to the side of the hall. These holes are normally used to drain the spar deck of water, but I'm using them for as the ballast tank vents. I did it this way so no water would be pumped onto the spar deck when filling the ballast tanks.