Tugboat RDA
The Tugboat is a high end RDA made by Flawless Vapor. The Tugboat RDA is currently in its second incarnation and has some wonderful improvements over the first version. We’ll go in depth in this review and see if the Tugboat RDA is all people are saying it is.
Tugboat RDA Design
The Tugboat is a serious performer in terms of vapor production and flavor – no question. The design is very traditional, but everything is perfect. The Tugboat comes in 4 parts – the deck, sleeve, top cap and drip tip. The parts are machined wonderfully and everything fits together tight. This is a top quality RDA for sure. The Tugboat comes in 3 choices of finish – matte, brushed or polished stainless steel. The drip tip is really nice as well – its insulated and in my experience, stays cool and performs great. The bore is wide enough to drip through which is pretty essential. Oddly enough, “included” drip tips are usually pretty unimpressive. This is definitely not the case with the Tugboat.
The Tugboat RDA features a straight up 3 post design. Nothing fancy here except the center post is made of copper which extends down to the 510 connection. This is a hard hitting RDA and is a joy to use. The posts feature large holes for vapers who prefer lower resistance Kanthal. You could easily do quad builds on this.
Also nice is the smaller chamber with conical top cap. I believe this is the secret to excellent vapor production. The Tugboat RDA also features a deeper juice well over the original version and now has air flow control. The air flow control is set high enough to still be next to your coil build, and its high enough to not leak which is another problem we saw with the first version.
Also worth noting is that Flawless sells replacement parts in the event that you wear something out. Very nice.
Improvements?
Tugboat RDA Air Flow Control
I’ll start by saying I really love this RDA. The Tugboat is insanely good in terms of both flavor and performance. Its been my all day unit pretty much since it came out. I’m very impressed. So is there anything that can could be improved?
The deep juice well encourages you to go ahead and fill up. I do get leaking when I turn the device sideways forgetting I’ve already juiced it pretty good. I could solve this with more wick so its not a deal breaker. I really love this design for performance so I wouldn’t want Flawless to redesign just to fix that.
The second problem is the logos. They are huge and all over this thing. There’s an over designed Tugboat trademark on both the RDA and the drip tip. And in case you forgot it was made in the USA, there’s a huge flag on the other side. Again – this is not a deal breaker because I still love the flavor and performance, but this RDA looks SOOOOO good – especially in the matte finish. I just wish they’d let the design speak for itself and not put logos all over the device.
Conclusion
In my book, the Tugboat RDA gets a 9 out of 10. Minus one point for the goofy logos. But its a solid performer and is priced really well at $90. I realize that is expensive for a lot of people, but I’ll put it this way:
I haven’t put this down in 3 days. Its a solid performer and I really believe in this case that you get exactly what you pay for. You’ll get a lot of mileage out of the Tugboat RDA and there are parts available should something break. This is not only a solid RDA, but an investment as well.
Highly recommended!
