The Aquamog was created & designed in the early 80s by a company in Martinez, CA by the name of Aquatics Unlimited (AU). The team at AU, headed up by Thomas McNabb and Jim Nevrela, had the idea to create a multi-purpose floating machine that could perform a number of aquatic maintenance tasks. The name aquamogs was coined by Jim Nevrela who was the designer on the project. Jim was a Czechoslovakian by birth and immigrated to the USA via Canada. Jim’s knowledge of the Mercedes Benz Unimog, which is a multipurpose land vehicle that can go any where in most any conditions, was the source for the name Aquamog. AU’s mission in designing & developing the Aquamog was to make an aquatic vessel that could go anywhere in almost any condition. Thus name aqua-mog was created. At the time the Aquamog was created and developed just for the AU contracting business.

The 1st Aquamog was built using an existing barge from an H10-800 aquatic harvester. This was done as an experiment to see if the Aquamog idea would even work. A removable unit was created that could be bolted to the barge of the H10-800. The top of the H10-800 was removed and the new unit attached and the first Aquamog was created. The unit has a backhoe type arm on the front an operators cab in the middle and the engine with hydraulic components on the back. There were also two out riggers attached at the back of the unit. The propulsion for the Aquamog was the same paddle wheels used for the H10-800.

The operator’s area of the Aquamog included of a seat and a control panel. The first Aquamogs were designed around the physical dimensions of the first Aquamog operator David McNabb. So the first Aquamogs were all designed for Dave’s height as well as his arm span. This was not an issue until more Aquamogs were created by AU and sold. Some of the new operators where shorter and did not have Dave’s arm length either. Some could not touch their feet to the floor of the operators cab as well as reach all the controls efficiently.

Thus the first generation of Aquamog from the late 1980′s was an ever changing machine. Tom McNabb and Jim Nevrela made it a point to improve each Aquamog built with each new project that came along. This was the case until the early 1990′s when the first Aquamogs where produced and sold commercially. AU still utilized the Aquamog for its contracting business but there was a market developing for the Aquamog in parts of the United States and internationally.

Additional information about the history of the Aquamog can be found by going to aquamogs.com. There you will find numerous pictures of the early Aquamogs and descriptions of each of these machines. In addition information of projects completed by the Aquamog can be viewed by going to aquamog.net. There is now one more entry into the “Mog” family and that is the Marshmog, which can be viewed by going to marshmog.com.