World War II United States Patrol Torpedo (PT) Boat Manufacturers, PT's 1 through 19 were considered experimental:

PT boats 1 and 2 were a 58' design built in 1941 by Fogal Boat Yard Inc. They featured a design with the deck to sheer joint a wide radius. Although interesting I think this limited their useful deck area. The stem angle was fairly square to the deck.

PT's 3 and 4 were 58' and were built in 1940 by Fisher Boat Works. Their appearance is similar to the Fogal boats.

PT's 5 and 6 were 81' and built in 1941 by Higgins Industries. They look fairly close to final designs. They feature an angled stem that curves smoothly into the keel.

PT's 7 and 8 were 81' and built in 1941 by the Navy. They are superficially similar to PT's 1 through 4 but of an aluminum hulled design.

None of these first 8 designs ended up meeting ever-changing Naval requirements. The Navy turned its eye across the Atlantic to England where promising designs were in production.

PT 9 was a 70' British Scott-Paine designed boat (PV70) built by British Power Boat Company and purchased by Elco in 1939 for study.

PT's 10 through 19 were built by Elco in 1940 and were based on PT 9 with some Navy requested changes. They have the recurved stem of the Scott-Paine design that give the bow profile a pointed look.

Although promising, the US Navy wanted more boat length to handle their preferred torpedo, a longer, 21" width design. Previous PT boat designs had been built for 18" torpedos. They also wanted the hull beefed up to enable it to survive heavy seas in the open ocean. Elco was awarded a contract to build 24 boats to the revised specs.

PT's 20 through 44 were built by Elco in 1941. They are 77' long and have the recurved stem. This model was the first to see combat, PT 41 was LT. John Bulkeley's RON 3 boat.

Meanwhile, Higgins and Huckins developed designs of their own to compete in a 1941 Navy competition coined "The Plywood Derby". Although Elco came out on top, the Navy awarded contracts to all 3 builders. Both Higgins (76') and Huckins (72') changed their contract designs to a 78' length.

PT's 45 through 68 were built in 1941 by Elco in a 77' length. PT's 59 through 61 were converted in 1943 to gunboats by removing all weapons except the 50 cal turrets and adding two Bofors 40mm cannons and 4 more twin 50's.

PT 69 was the Huckins contest entry and was 72' long.

PT 70 was the Higgins contest entry and was 76' long.

PT's 71 through 94 were 78' long and built in 1941 by Higgins based on their contest entry.

PT's 95 through 102 were 78' long and built in 1941 by Huckins based on their contest entry. None of these boats saw combat but were used for training and homeland defense area patrol.

PT 103 began the last major change to Elco's hull design. Length was increased to 80' and deck design is open and designed for ease of armament changes. The stem sweeps smoothly back before curving into the keel. They have a long forward deck which steps up gracefully to the bridge via the angled front of the chart house. To me they look similar to todays vee bottomed ocean racers.

Other good sources of PT boat facts including RON assignments, bases, tenders are www.ptboats.org, and http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/pt/. The information found at the latter site was compiled by Steve Laroe and maintained by Andrew Toppan. Besides the worlds greatest library, the internet, other great sources of information are books, a good review of PT boat books can be found at John Drain's excellent site www.pt-boat.com. John also sells awesome laser cut plywood PT boat kits and is intent on accuracy. He has detailed drawings based on his research there amongst a wealth of other information.