Ranger sailboats: an exclusive line built around one designer's IOR pedigree
Ranger sailboats grew out of one man's admiration for another's design work. Jack Jensen, who had founded Jensen Marine in 1957 and built it into the maker of the Cal line, admired naval architect Gary Mull and saw an opportunity to build a second, broader-appeal line around him. To reach East Coast buyers he wasn't reaching with Cal, Jensen formed Ranger Marine in 1967 and struck an exclusive arrangement: Ranger would build only Mull's designs. Both Cal and Ranger operated out of Costa Mesa, California, sharing a builder but pursuing different design philosophies under one roof.
Origins and ownership
Mull had already made his name before Ranger existed — his first design success was the Santana 22, built by W.D. Schock. Under the new exclusive arrangement, his first Ranger was the 26, drawn in 1968 as a fast, roomy, multi-purpose sloop; the 33 followed as his second design for the line, and he went on to draw several more models carrying the Ranger name, including the 22, 23, 28, 29, and 37. By the early 1970s, the conglomerate Bangor Punta had bought both Jensen Marine and Ranger Yachts, according to the company's own corporate timeline and multiple boat reviews. The acquisition strained the arrangement that had defined the brand: Mull had philosophical disagreements with the new management, and his exclusive Ranger design agreement was terminated — though later designs like the 28 (1976) and 22 (1977) show he continued producing for the marque afterward. What happened to production next is described differently by different sources: Good Old Boat states that Ranger and Cal production both moved from California to Massachusetts, while Practical Sailor instead ties Ranger's end to Cal, writing that when Bangor Punta moved Cal production to Florida in early 1981, the move "pulled the plug on Ranger." Bangor Punta's Ranger division was shut down that same year. Two years later, in 1983 per Practical Sailor's account, Bangor Punta sold Cal and O'Day — along with a small residual run of Rangers — to Lear Siegler, which built all three lines in Fall River, Massachusetts, until shutting them down by 1987; Lear Siegler completed its takeover of the rest of Bangor Punta in February 1984.
The designers
Gary Mull was Ranger's designer almost without exception, and his range for the brand leaned hard into the IOR and MORC racing rules of the era. The 28 was built as an International Offshore Rule Half Ton class racer; the 22 was conceived as an IOR Mini Ton racer, and its builders incorporated Airex foam panels and carbon-fiber stiffeners to make it stiffer without adding weight; a 1974 advertisement billed the 32 as "Gary Mull's 3/4 Ton Winner." Mull's 37-footer stands out even beyond that range: it was the last bona fide production boat to win the Southern Ocean Racing Conference, in 1972. Not every Ranger came from Mull's board, though — the smaller Ranger 20 was designed instead by Raymond Richards.
Construction through the eras
Ranger's early boats reflected Mull's design intent directly. Asked to give the 28 the performance of a competition sailboat with the comfort of a cruiser below, Ranger patterned its hull after Mull's most agile MORC and IOR designs. The 26 used a lapped hull-to-deck joint, caulked and fastened with self-tapping screws. The 23's hull was laid up in alternating layers of mat and woven roving to Lloyd's Provisional Rules for GRP vessels, with bulkheads bonded to the hull and a fiberglass-pan interior, while its deck used a sandwiched balsa-core laminate built by a honeycomb method developed by Hexcel. By the late 1970s, Ranger pushed construction further toward light weight without sacrificing strength: the 22's builders paired Airex foam panels and carbon-fiber stiffeners with a beefed-up structural cabin sole, producing a thinner, lighter layup the builder said was nonetheless stronger than conventional construction.
Lines and generations
Ranger also ran a limited factory racing edition called the Ranger Specials — 92 boats in total, identifiable by their distinctive red hulls. The October 1972 batch comprised 28 Ranger 23s, 28 Ranger 26s, 24 Ranger 29s, and 12 Ranger 33s, each equipped with the "Gary Mull Racing Package" of spinnaker gear, staysail gear, backstay adjusters, and ball-bearing travelers. Separately, Ranger built a distinct centerboard version of the 26 in the late 1970s — a different boat from the original, and by most accounts less successful than it.
Who Ranger is for
Ranger suits sailors drawn to a brand built entirely around one designer's competitive instincts. Mull's Ranger 37 outracing the rest of the SORC fleet in 1972, the Half Ton-class 28, and the factory-backed Ranger Specials all point to the same identity: boats built to race first and cruise second, under a single-minded design partnership that outlasted three different corporate owners before finally running its course in 1987.
