Stories of unsinkable Ranger boats
It seems pretty simple. Your boat has got to float or you’re sunk. Nowhere is that more true than on the bass tournament trails. Just ask FLW Tour regular and Ranger pro Rob Kilby of Hot Springs, Ark.
“I was fishing in a tournament in 1986 on Truman Lake, and it was full of standing timber and cedar trees that are kind of touchy-grabby to start with.” Kilby said. “One of them grabbed my drain plug (the older style, flip-up rubber plugs) and just pulled it right out of the boat.
“So, there I was fishing and all of a sudden my bilge pump kicks on. I got to looking around, and the whole back end of the boat was full of water. I pumped all the water out and discovered what had happened, but I couldn’t find the plug.
“This happened around 12 noon on that day of the tournament, and I didn’t have another plug. I said to myself, `It’s a good thing this Ranger will float,’ and I fished all day with no plug. I never had a problem with it and made the whole day,” Kilby said.
Now that’s not exactly how a pro would want to discover Ranger’s superior floating ability, but for Kilby it couldn’t have come at a better time. He also said that the incident demonstrated Ranger’s willingness to listen to pro anglers; the style of the drain plug was soon changed so that it could be screwed into the boat, making it impossible for it to be pulled straight out. For good measure, Ranger added a strap to the plug so if it was accidentally left out, it wouldn’t be lost.
For former FLW Tour champion Denny Brauer of Camdenton, Mo., the discovery of a Ranger boat’s ability to float was more dramatic.
“I remember it was in a 1982 tournament up on Seneca-Cayuga Lakes in New York where we ended up having huge waves,” Brauer explained. “Some waves were in the 12-to 18-foot class, depending where you were on the lake. I filled the boat up with water several times and it was cold water. If I hadn’t had the flotation of that Ranger where it stayed upright so I could get it pumped out, I might not be here talking about it. It’s a feature that has probably saved a lot of lives in adverse conditions over the years.”
Safety has long been an integral part of Ranger Boats’ philosophy when designing and engineering boats. In fact, safety is one of the elements of what Ranger calls their “Five Star Advantage.” The boat’s ability to float has been at the top of Ranger’s list of safety features from day one.
Ranger is famous for its marketing campaign in which one of the boat models has large chunks cut out of it and then is put out on the water. At promotional events as well as in advertisement photos, Ranger founder Forrest Wood and company president Randy Hopper have fished from that compromised boat without having to worry about getting wet.
One of the keys to the superior flotation of Ranger boats is the meticulous foam-injection process they undergo at the factory. Closed cell foam is injected into available cavities including inside the stringers, the sides of the hull, below the floor, and around all compartment and storage areas.
“There is a minimum set of flotation standards required by the Coast Guard, and then there is our internal criteria which is above and beyond the Coast Guard’s standards in every case,” Hopper said. “It also should be noted that the Coast Guard requirements only apply for boats up to 20 feet long. So, buyer beware for boats over 20 feet. But be assured that all of Ranger’s boats, regardless if they’re 18 feet or 21 feet or 24 feet, are subject to the same set of stringent standards we set that are beyond Coast Guard requirements.”
Bass pro Brauer quipped that he had even heard of some cases where a Ranger boat demonstrated even greater flotation ability than anticipated. “I hear stories from law enforcement officials about people who have tried to sink a Ranger boat for insurance claims, and the boat comes floating right back up full of rocks and everything else they tried to use to sink it,” he said.
There are other benefits derived from the foaming process applied to Ranger boats in addition to flotation safety. The foam has a very high R-factor, which means it is a great insulator against temperature. It also greatly deadens sound, which is critical for any angler.
While the flotation ability of a boat is critical to overall safety, there are other factors to be considered as well. Through the years one very important improvement to overall boat performance and safety has been in steering.
“Our boats are designed for stability on the top end, to reduce chine-walking across rough waves and to make the boats easier to drive,” Hopper said. “A big part of that is the fluid-steering system we use. With the fluid steering, we have eliminated the feedback from the engine so it’s more like driving your automobile.”
As Hopper describes it, feedback occurs when a boat transfers the high-torque motion of an outboard engine’s prop to the steering system of a boat. This occurred most frequently on the old cable-steer systems that had dual cable rack-and-pinion mechanics. These systems were more apt to pick up the high-powered screwing motion made by props.
“Having fluid steering, such as the Sea Star Pro that we worked closely with Teleflex to develop, is key to the safest operation of a high-performance boat through a range of operating conditions,” Hopper said. “We believe in no-feedback steering. We have fluid steering on everything V6 and above. Below V6 we use no-feedback mechanical steering.”
Brauer also sees a stable steering system as a real safety issue. “It used to be a big deal if you happened to get thrown out of the seat, or hit a rough wave and the boat would do a 90-degree turn on you because of the wheel torque,” he said. “But now that no longer is a factor. With the fluid-steering systems we have, you can take your hands off the steering wheel if you had to (not something that should ever be done on purpose) and the boat would keep going in a straight line.”
Kilby not only sees the advantages of the fluid-steering system for safety reasons but also for comfort, which is especially important to tournament fishermen. “Years ago it would just wear you out trying to run a long ways because there was so much torque on the steering wheel that you would literally just have to stop if you ran for an hour and a half,” he said. “With the fluid steering you have no torque transfer. It’s a huge safety feature as well as a comfort feature. If you’re making a long run, there is nothing like it. Ranger was the first to put it on their boats as standard equipment.”
There are a lot of other smaller safety features that have evolved on bass boats that have become so standard they are often taken for granted. Take, for example, Ranger’s innovative “runnin’ rod racks.”
The idea was to provide anglers a convenient and safe way to stow rods quickly when moving from spot to spot on a lake rather than having to open a rod box to store and place the rods in a certain position. According to Hopper, “The retractable straps on the rod racks came as a convenience, but at the same time, it is a safety item because you don’t have rods blowing back in your face when you are running down the lake.”
Ranger expanded the runnin’ rack idea and included one for the passenger. Many times passengers will bring their own rods aboard and need a safe and convenient place to stow equipment.
Hopper pointed out that Ranger also has made sure that there are adequate and ergonomic grab handles conveniently placed on each boat where a passenger might sit.
Many of the safety features on Ranger boats have come as a direct result from input by customers, employees and pros. “I have been involved on several different occasions of gathering information from fishermen and supplying it to Ranger,” Kilby said. “The mad-scientist approach doesn’t work. You can’t lock yourself in a closet and come out with some kind of design and expect it to work. You have to take input from people that are using the boats.”
Kilby said that the 2003 Ranger 521 model has a unique feature that resulted directly from customer input. It has an open area in the interior of the boat where the handle of the dip net can be slid up underneath the tanks and out of the way.
As more and more anglers decided to participate in competitive bass tournaments, Ranger has built bigger boats that provide more safety in adverse weather conditions. Bigger boats also mean bigger outboards that can get fishermen off the water faster when need be.
While the boats continue to evolve to meet the changing needs of anglers, the overall philosophy of boat safety for Ranger has remained consistent. “We understand that, in its basic form, being on the water is a beautiful thing and a great experience,” said Hopper. “But we also understand that we are out of our natural element when we are on the water. With that in mind, we engineer and design our boats – whether it be flotation or stability – so that when a person is placed into that element, they are in as good of a situation as they can be with a highly specialized and safe fishing machine.”