Hull Laboratory Results- Ranger Tug

[BandB]

20' Lake and Bay Flats boat. With 250 hp runs around 65 mph, but change to 250XS Mercury with speedmaster lower unit and owner I know hit 92 mph. Guy ran the Back Country which is same basic hull over 100 mph. How thick do you think those hulls are?

Word of advice. Don't drop them. Don't run into things. Be prepared to patch if you didn't heed advice.

Boat we're on right now doesn't have a thick hull. It's modern composites. Lightweight is key. It also is on a Ranger.

 

[sean9c]

Seems like DDW was the first to get it right. You've now wasted more time and money on a lab report that tells you nothing. Just quit trying to find someone else to blame, accept the responsibility that you made a mistake by not having the boat surveyed or at least inspected at purchase and just have it repaired and use it.

 

[BandB]

Seems like DDW was the first to get it right. You've now wasted more time and money on a lab report that tells you nothing. Just quit trying to find someone else to blame, accept the responsibility that you made a mistake by not having the boat surveyed or at least inspected at purchase and just have it repaired and use it.

All he has is assumptions and allegations. Doesn't even have any form of lawsuit. Wouldn't even know who to sue. Now, I wouldn't be surprised to see him sue..anyone can sue about anything.

 

[bfloyd4445]

Seems like DDW was the first to get it right. You've now wasted more time and money on a lab report that tells you nothing. Just quit trying to find someone else to blame, accept the responsibility that you made a mistake by not having the boat surveyed or at least inspected at purchase and just have it repaired and use it.

Unfortunately in todays me world the idea is to make someone else pay as it can never be a me at fault.


Not saying that is the case here but I have been sued and lost by a guy that decided to drive accross the road in front of me and i hit him. I could not move and had no time to stop because there was a car going fast on my left that also ended up in the wreck. P{olice arrived and ticketed the driver of the vehicle that pulled into my path for no license no insurance and violantion of my right of way. A couple of weeks goes by and i get a letter sayng he was sueing for damages. Well to make a long story short i went to court and the lady that checked me in asked a couple of questions which i answered and she said i should counter sue. I said no way the court can ever find me at fault i don't wish to cause the old guy any more trouble than he already has. She insisted even saying she would file the papers all i needed was to sign my consent so i relented and signed. Well in court thew guy sueing me was way late and when he arrived the judge asked why he was late and he said he had several cars all needing repaired and had trouble finding one that would start. She asked him if he drove himself to court without a drivers license and he said yes. I thought to myself what a waste of resources this is an open and shut case. Well the judge made me resposible for his damages. The news shocked me when i recieved the letter and the amount i had to pay. Well within a couple of days of that ;letter i recieved another letter in which her decision was reversed and i was not responsible. That court clerk saved me. Glad she was so insistant on getting my signature.
The point here is that you can never tell what willl happen in court aND IF YOU SUE ENOUGH EVENTUALLY YOU WILL GET A WINDFALL Sorry for cap lock.
Almost two years later i get a letter from a lawyer inquiring about the accident above and asking what my losses were. He said he washandling the will as xx had passed away leaving a considerable estate which could not be distributed untill my counter suit in the above accident was cleared. I told him the cost of my vehicle repairs and the two days wages lost and recieved a check within a month.

 

[ssobol]

With a scanning electron microscope you can find voids in pretty much everything.

 

[bfloyd4445]

With a scanning electron microscope you can find voids in pretty much everything.

chuckle.... thanks for the laugh. Your absolutely correct.


hummmm....except for my wife head. If used on her it would not find any voids cause there is nothing there to have any voids

 

[BandB]

chuckle.... thanks for the laugh. Your absolutely correct.


hummmm....except for my wife head. If used on her it would not find any voids cause there is nothing there to have any voids

And you think something like that is ever humorous or appropriate to say?

 

[Marco Flamingo]

Word of advice. Don't drop them. Don't run into things

Naval architect friend once told me that his sailing cats aren't designed to hit anything harder than water. I always keep that in mind as it is probably true of lots of boats.

 

[boathealer]

Profile of our hull glass below the waterline (bottom, solid glass) and deckhouse sides (top, honycomb).

That's how a 37ft boat can weigh 50,000lbs.

 

[Rufus]

If there is one thing to remember from this ..... 6.3 mm ( that's less than 1/4 '' ) 1 1/2 '' to port side of keel . Builders double up ( overlap ) the fiberglass in the center .

6.3 mm ..... would you want that thickness on your 27 ft hull ? Remember this is not epoxy resin , carbon fiber or high end composites . Have a good long weekend .

BINGO! That's the lesson here. These are fragile boats of average build quality at best. You've done the boating community a service by pointing it out. 1/4" hull thickness on a boat this size is just plain disturbing.

I'm quite sure the boat was damaged during routine ground handling. In my sixteen years of assisting/supervising in the twice annual boat haul evolutions for our boat I am absolutely convinced that yard personal as a group don't have a clue regarding structural issues or weaknesses in various designs, and many of them don't give a hoot. Hydraulic pad lift trailers in particular are a menace in the wrong hands and clearly dangerous for a super thin hull like this one. If a given hull design demands special handling by yard personnel, then the manufacturer has a responsibility to make that clear to owners and yard personnel alike. A 1/4" hull is looking for trouble in the ground handling arena.

A recent post showed a thick cored hull section. The same problem exists with improper ground handling...pad lift hydraulic trailers in particular. I've alerted ABYC regarding this looming menace and suggested that they require manufacturers of cored hulls to issue specialized ground handling instructions. They're negligent if they haven't. If you have a boat with a cored hull and it's been on a pad lift hydraulic trailer, odds are high that the core material has local crush damage...you just don't know it yet.

Thank you bucketlist1.

 

[SoWhat]

I'm quite sure the boat was damaged during routine ground handling.

Pure speculation. No data to support opinion.

Hydraulic pad lift trailers in particular are a menace in the wrong hands and clearly dangerous for a super thin hull like this one.

Speculation. Again, no data.

If you have a boat with a cored hull and it's been on a pad lift hydraulic trailer, odds are high that the core material has local crush damage

Speculation. Yet again, no data.

My boatyard uses hydraulic lifts to move hundreds of boats from the lift to the various storage locations each year. I have never heard of a problem. I am speculating via anecdotal evidence so that is my personal opinion and has zero value.

 

[Rufus]

Sorry, no speculation here. I've seen a 48 foot 48,000 pound Viking MY on a 35 foot pad lift trailer. Twelve feet of the boat hung off the back of the trailer. The solid fiberglass hull was bowed upward at the aft pads. Presumeably you think that's OK? The owner wasn't around and I'll guarantee the yard never said a word. The boat next to us in the marina has a cored hull that was squashed during a blocking incident...cracks similar to what was noted in the earlier iterations of this saga. There are more examples, but I'm not going to get into a wizzing contest. There's unreported and undetected damage out there...guaranteed. My boat goes on a keel lift hydraulic trailer, or it goes into the storage building on the travel lift slings. And that's for a solid hull boat. You're rolling the dice if you put a cored hull boat on a pad lift (no keel support) hydraulic trailer. (You do know the difference I presume)?

 

[SteveK]

In part 1 of this episode I commented that the haul out showed no problems, the OP then left his boat in the hands of trusted workers to load onto a trailer for long distance hauling and after arrival crushed hull section was discovered.
I suggested the boat was properly loaded but perhaps the road had potholes and a pressure point did the damage.

The OP is blaming the builder for not making bullitproof without voids

 

[Rufus]

Pressure points are exactly the issue with trailers that don't carry the majority of the weight of the boat via the keel. It's far too easy to create a pressure point at a given pad. And the ground crew won't know the difference. Boat manufacturers go through the trouble to identify sling lift points, but not a word about precise placement and required size (area) of pads for a given boat on these trailers. The trailers I've seen don't have any indication of how much pressure is being applied at a given pad. My boat went partially on a pad lift trailer one time. Fortunately I observed that one of the pads was extended to a longer length than the other three corners (operator error) and the boat was going on in a twisted manner. I stopped the operation and banned the yard from using that trailer on my boat. Most ground operations take place when owners are not present. If a boat hull isn't tolerant to abuse during ground handling, the boat builder has a responsibility to make that known. They also have a responsibility to know and understand how the trailer designs and gorilla operators can inflict damage.

I'm not sure as to exactly what the OP is trying to do, but he has made it pretty clear that this hull is a bit on the thin side....and therefore quite susceptible to damage from mistakes during ground handling.

 

[Frosty]

Hydraulic pad lift trailers in particular are a menace in the wrong hands and clearly dangerous for a super thin hull like this one.

Would a "Brownell" trailer be what you'd call a pad lift trailer? I'm guessing so --- they have like six arms that come up from the trailer with a ~20" square pad on the end of each arm. (Then timbers slide in from the sides for the keel to rest on.)

If so, I hadn't realized they were something to watch out for, specifically. But I can imagine how they could be now that I think about it. Hydraulics have a lot of power (hello log splitter).

I'll pay more attention to that in the future.

 

[Toki]

So ... the conclusion here is that Rangers have thin, lightweight hulls that aren't very resilient to improper abuse, as opposed to a thicker, heavier hull.

... and you missed several boating seasons, bored giant holes in your hull, and paid a fortune for lab tests to determine this?

 

[bfloyd4445]

So ... the conclusion here is that Rangers have thin, lightweight hulls that aren't very resilient to improper abuse, as opposed to a thicker, heavier hull.

... and you missed several boating seasons, bored giant holes in your hull, and paid a fortune for lab tests to determine this?

Manufacturers of trailer boats like Ranger should design their boats with reinforcing in areas that would normally sit on the bunks of a trailer. If the samples taken to the lab were not from these areas of the bottom then the tests were a waste of money but if they were, the tests are proof of a major Ranger engineering fault and Ranger should be held liabel

 

[Rufus]

Would a "Brownell" trailer be what you'd call a pad lift trailer? I'm guessing so --- they have like six arms that come up from the trailer with a ~20" square pad on the end of each arm. (Then timbers slide in from the sides for the keel to rest on.)

If so, I hadn't realized they were something to watch out for, specifically. But I can imagine how they could be now that I think about it. Hydraulics have a lot of power (hello log splitter).

I'll pay more attention to that in the future.

The trailer type you describe is used by our current yard, and sounds like what I consider a keel lift trailer with hydraulic stabilizing (not lift) arms. The boat is pulled out of the lift basin by the travel lift and then set on the preinstalled aluminum keel slats (timbers in your case). Then the stabilizing hydraulic arms are raised to stabilize the boat on the trailer. A small amount of pressure is applied to the outboard edges of the hull, but the majority of the weight is carried by the keel...as it should be. When the travel lift straps are removed, the trailer frame (and boat) is hydraulically raised for transport via the wheel carriage (similar to air springs on a semi truck). When the boat is in the storage building, blocks are positioned under the keel through the open space between the longitudinal trailer rails. The trailer frame is hydraulically lowered via the wheel truck/carriage cylinders, and boat settles onto blocking. Jack stands are positioned along the sides, the hydraulic support arms are retracted, the cross slats/timbers are pulled out and the trailer is pulled forward leaving the boat in its final storage position. The boat is supported by the keel from beginning to end. I call that a keel lift trailer. They take extra time to load and unload, but they won't damage your boat. Now if they're lifting the boat out of the water from a big launch ramp using the hydraulic arms only, that would be a different story.

The other versions, which I'm referring to as pad lift, support the weight of the boat via pads only. Some use multiple hydraulic arms to press against the bottom of the hull (not the keel). Some use a simple frame with manual screw jacks/pads along the frame. The frame is hydraulically lifted and lowered on the trailer's wheel truck. On the first version it's possible for the operator to apply different pressure on each arm thereby creating serious pressure points during the lift and transport. On the second version, if the screw jacks aren't extended exactly the same amount, and/or if the trailer isn't aligned exactly parallel to the keel when the boat is lowered by the travel lift, the hull can both twist and bend as it contorts into position. Loads on the pads will not be evenly distributed. I saw a trailer actually wedged to the bottom of a 42 Grand Banks when the crew lowered the hull onto the blocks in the storage building. It actually lifted the trailers wheel truck off the floor! That trailer had to weigh a couple of tons. The bottom paint was scraped and gouged where the pads had been wedged. Nasty business (Not speculation). There's plenty of opportunity for operator error on these types of trailers. Again, if the boat isn't robust enough to take the abuse, things break. I believe boat builders as a whole are way behind the power curve when it comes to ground handling issues. Not a real big problem with older solid fiberglass hulls, different story for light construction.

Keel lift with stabilizing arms. Wheel truck aticulates after boat is sitting in keel



Pad lift. Wheel truck articulates. Pads manually adjusted (maybe...)

 

[DDW]

The best hydraulic trailer are the Sea-Lift ones, weight is carried by large and long pneumatic tubes with pressures not much different than the boat floating in the water. These are kinder to the boat than a travel lift. Anything with pads on arms powered by hydraulics depends on the operator not breaking the boat, you pays your money and takes your chance.

Certainly 6mm thick laminate could not be considered overbuilt, but there are many ways to reinforce a hull. 6mm laminate on a cored hull would be huge and way overbuilt. Uncored, it would depend on bulkhead and stringer placement to get sufficient stiffness for slamming loads, and some knowledge on the boatyard's part to keep from poking a hole in it.

The OP has mentioned several times that builders overlap layers at the keel - some do and some don't, depends on a lot of factors in the build.

 

[twistedtree]

Before we get too spun about about this, let's remember that there are lots of Ranger Tugs out there, being trailered, being hauled and launched, and they don't all have holes poked in them.


Something bad happened to the OP's boat - there is no debate about that - but there is nothing to suggest, let along show that the boats are fundamentally unfit for purpose. In fact, all the boats out there operating as intended proves just the opposite.


Let's also go back to earlier posts, and earlier threads on this topic and remember that the OP has NEVER, not once, despite being asked over and over again, stated what exactly his gripe or complaint is.


All we get is "look the hull is 6mm thick". Or "look at this microscopic image". Or look, there was water in the boat because there's a hole in the boat. So the @($#fork what? Who cares? Until you can say what your complaint is, you really need to stop smearing Ranger

 

[Rufus]

The OP is providing data that some of us find interesting. 6 mm is definitely interesting.

BTW, anchors, engine brands, boat brands, hull shapes, varnish, toilets, sewage hose, etc. get trashed here all the time.

 

[Frosty]

The trailer type you describe is used by our current yard, and sounds like what I consider a keel lift trailer with hydraulic stabilizing (not lift) arms.

Ah okay, thanks. I wasn't aware that there were any that had no keel support, but only arm/pads.

(Although in the case I'm speaking of, there was no Travelift because it wasn't an ideal place to build a Travelift well. So the Brownell (actual Brownell) trailer was used to launch and haul boats more or less like your typical small trailer you'd tow behind a pickup truck. Tow vehicle was a small semi-cab thingie, and the Brownell went down the ramp and into the water to receive the boat.

But yes, there were huge orange baulks that slid in to support the keel/major weight of the boat. Of course you *could* still put a lot of pressure on the boat with a pad; but nothing like the risk of ONLY having the pads and no keel support. I would not be too keen on that.

 

[bfloyd4445]

Before we get too spun about about this, let's remember that there are lots of Ranger Tugs out there, being trailered, being hauled and launched, and they don't all have holes poked in them.


Something bad happened to the OP's boat - there is no debate about that - but there is nothing to suggest, let along show that the boats are fundamentally unfit for purpose. In fact, all the boats out there operating as intended proves just the opposite.


Let's also go back to earlier posts, and earlier threads on this topic and remember that the OP has NEVER, not once, despite being asked over and over again, stated what exactly his gripe or complaint is.


All we get is "look the hull is 6mm thick". Or "look at this microscopic image". Or look, there was water in the boat because there's a hole in the boat. So the @($#fork what? Who cares? Until you can say what your complaint is, you really need to stop smearing Ranger

Good point. There is so much trash on the seas it can be easy to hit something and not know it untill haul out or you start filling with water.....
Happened to me once. I had just completed changing some thru hulls and hoses then took her out for a ters run. Everything ran like a timex or so i thought. i shut down and relaxed for a bit enjoying the day got bored and decided to check out the engine room finding it half full of water! what the ,,,,found the issue it was my fault a hose popped off and water was pouring in...sum dummy forgot to put the clamps on. Lucky for me idecided to go diddlew around below because it was soon enough that i could find and fix the problem without problem. My point: anything can happen and sooner or later it will

 

[BruceK]

Good point. There is so much trash on the seas it can be easy to hit something and not know it untill haul out or you start filling with water.....
Happened to me once. I had just completed changing some thru hulls and hoses then took her out for a ters run. Everything ran like a timex or so i thought. i shut down and relaxed for a bit enjoying the day got bored and decided to check out the engine room finding it half full of water! what the ,,,,found the issue it was my fault a hose popped off and water was pouring in...sum dummy forgot to put the clamps on. Lucky for me idecided to go diddlew around below because it was soon enough that i could find and fix the problem without problem. My point: anything can happen and sooner or later it will

Great post,anything that takes the thread way off topic is good.
We just saw someone washing their cat, wow(meow?),......

 

[bfloyd4445]

Great post,anything that takes the thread way off topic is good.
We just saw someone washing their cat, wow(meow?),......

Not something cats are normally willing to sit still for.


The post i replied to reminded me of the incident from many years ago. I was just trying to demonstrate that anything can happen and its not always someone elses fault.

 

[hollywood8118]

Obviously these boats are built to be, and are delivered by trailer all over the country. Something else caused the real issue. Yes Rangers are built lightly but this is also a plus when they are trailered.just because the hull is thin doesn't necessarily mean that it's not strong enough.
Hollywood

 

[bfloyd4445]

Obviously these boats are built to be, and are delivered by trailer all over the country. Something else caused the real issue. Yes Rangers are built lightly but this is also a plus when they are trailered.just because the hull is thin doesn't necessarily mean that it's not strong enough.
Hollywood

If they were cheaply made it would be all over the net. They are good boats and appear to hold up well. I would like to hear more details on the incident that started this thread....makes me wonder

 

[BandB]

So ... the conclusion here is that Rangers have thin, lightweight hulls that aren't very resilient to improper abuse, as opposed to a thicker, heavier hull.

... and you missed several boating seasons, bored giant holes in your hull, and paid a fortune for lab tests to determine this?

That's the conclusion of some, but the reality is we don't even know that the Rangers are more subject to issues than others. We know one Ranger boat has a problem of unknown cause and an owner blasting everywhere he can online. Wonder how many more holes he intends to drill.

 

[TWedd]

While searching for my current boat, I took a ride on a brand new Ranger 27 outboard with a dealer. It took about 5 minutes to get into a little chop and I knew the hull was thin just by the hull slap. I didn't need to drill holes and have testing to know that. It would not keep me from buying a Ranger, but I know that an impact would have been very problematic. Eventually decided to go larger so we can live aboard, glad to have an inch if solid fiberglass in my current boat.

 

[Rufus]

Hull thickness and voids aside, what got my attention in the report is the use of polyester resin versus vinyl ester.