NOTE: The Ranger is being re-created... The Legend Lives On!!

Ranger, was built for "Mike" Vanderbilt whose plan it was to have both W Starling Burgess and Olin Stephens submit plans that were then tested in the towing tanks at the Stephens Institute of Technology. The fastest design would be built with the two designers sharing the credit. It was a design combination which produced the greatest "J" of the fleet — the ‘super J' as Ranger was later known. (Note: it was not until many years later that Olin Stephens revealed in his memoirs that it was a Burgess design for Ranger that was utilized.)

She was built at the Bath Ironworks in Maine, for the cost of the materials only, of flush riveted steel plating and was fitted with the required "one double and two single staterooms or four single staterooms, each fitted with a door, the double stateroom with two bunks, and each single stateroom with one bunk, bureau, hanging locker, seat and adequate individual skylight."

Ranger was completed and launched in May. During the tow from Maine to Newport the upper parts of her rod rigging which stayed her duralumin mast shook loose and her mast snapped "with a report like a cannon". Vanderbilt had her towed to the Herreshoff yard in Bristol, Rhode Island where Ranger was fitted with an old mast and rigging from Rainbow. She was sailing again 10 days after the accident.

Ranger's success on the water was widespread. Owner-skipper Harold S. "MIke" Vanderbilt described her as being "slower to turn and to pick up speed, but [she] held her way longer, and was perfectly balanced on the wind." Ranger clearly outclassed Sopwith's challenger Endeavour II and swept the four-race series 4-0.

With the masterful Vanderbilt at the helm Ranger won 35 of 37 starts. She was broken up for scrap in 1941 to support the War effort. Only the transom of Ranger remains as a trophy to this great racing yacht.