Browsing: Ranger Tugs

Cruising Life
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Cruising with Grandkids on a Ranger 25

Cruising with kids is one thing; cruising with grandkids is quite another. For one thing, you’re older. For another, the kids seem younger. But for Jim and Lisa Favors, from Traverse City, Michigan, one of the most experienced cruising couples around, the idea of spending time with their grandchildren was a big motivator when they bought their new Ranger Tugs 25, a red-hulled version named Kismet, more than a year ago. Yes, it was smaller than their previous Rangers, a 27 and a 29 (both also red-hulled and also named Kismet), but they figured it would be easier to handle…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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Fluid Motion Launches New Solara Line

Fluid Motion, the Kent, Washington, company that makes Ranger Tugs and Cutwater Boats, just announced that it’s launching a new brand, called Solara, starting with four trailerable models with innovative and versatile layouts. “Solara is our new luxury adventure line of boats that are fast, fun, and ready for action,” says John Livingston, the president of Solara Boats (and Fluid Motion). “These new boats are turn-key, so owners can start having fun the moment their boat hits the water.” The first four boats are the Solara 250 Coupe (pictured below), Solara 250 Center Walkaround, Solara 250 Dual Console, and the…

Cruising Life
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Favors Trailer New Ranger 25 from Seattle to Florida

Jim and Lisa Favors are certainly veteran travelers, but even for them this was a major undertaking, a 3,400-mile expedition from Seattle, where they picked up their new Ranger Tugs 25, to Fort Myers, Florida, where they started cruising on it. This trip actually started just before Thanksgiving when the Favors left their home in Traverse City, Michigan, to head for Des Moines, just below Seattle, to pick up their new boat. This is the third Ranger Tugs they have owned (after a 27 and a 29). They wrote on their blog, trailertrawlerlife.com, that they downsized because they want to…

Cruising Life
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Favors Get Their New Ranger Tugs 25

Jim and Lisa Favors just took delivery of their new Ranger Tugs 25 near the factory south of Seattle, and it has a red hull, just like their two previous Rangers, and it’s named Kismet, just like their two previous Rangers. Even though this is the Favors’ third Ranger Tug, and the smallest (they had started with a 27 and then moved up to a 29), and they have owned boats and cruised for most of their adult lives, they signed up for Ranger’s new-owner factory orientation. Available to all new owners, the orientation is a two-day, on-the-water session where…

Cruising Life
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Airline Pilot Commutes To Work on Ranger Tug

In the early 1900’s, New York businessmen discovered that the trip from Long Island and Connecticut to Wall Street in Manhattan could be accomplished faster and more luxuriously on a boat. They built some amazing fast commuters or business boats specifically for this purpose. Pan forward a hundred years and boat commuting still works. A resourceful airline pilot based in New York City and flying out of LaGuardia follows the lead of these early commuter boat pioneers by living aboard and commuting to work on a Ranger Tugs R-29. Instead of staying in an expensive and tiny Manhattan apartment and…

Boat Reviews
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Cutwater Making New 28 Coupe with Twin Yamahas

Cutwater is making a new C-288 Coupe with twin 250-hp Yamaha outboards, a fully equipped pocket cruiser suitable for a couple or a small family. The boat has a 10-foot beam to maximize the cabin area for comfortable living on board and to give the boat stability, while still making it a trailerable vessel. The new 28 has a double-stepped, deep-V hull for performance and efficiency. It comes with a standard bow thruster and electric trim tabs to make maneuvering easy both around the docks and underway. Inside, the forward stateroom has seating around a table that drops down to…

Cruising Life
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Ranger Tugs Launches New 43 CB Flagship

Ranger Tugs has a new flagship, the 43 CB (Command Bridge), that’s powered by twin 340-hp Volvo IPS450 pod drives and hits a top speed of 29 knots but burns only 10 gph at a more tug-like 11 knots. (See the boat in action in the video below.) With two staterooms and two heads, the new Ranger can be just about anything you want it to be: A waterfront property that moves, a comfortable liveaboard, a floating office, or most likely, a family cruiser for everything from an overnight near home to a journey around the Great Loop. And you…

Boat Reviews
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The Favors Downsize: Next Boat, a Ranger Tugs 25

A lot of us (including myself) were certainly surprised when we learned that Jim and Lisa Favors put their beloved, and well-traveled, Ranger Tugs 29 Kismet up for sale last summer, without any explanation of what they would do next. After all, the Favors have been cruising most of their adult lives, most recently on Ranger Tugs, and have written about them extensively on their website, trailertrawlerlife. Now we know what comes next: A new Ranger Tugs, but the Favors are downsizing. Their next Ranger will be a 25, with a single 250-hp Yamaha outboard to give them more performance…

Boat Reviews
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Fall Boat Show Special: New Boats 35 Feet and Under

Here’s a look at just some of the new cruising boats, 35 feet and under, that, in normal times, you’d probably see at the fall boat shows this year: RANGER TUGS R-27 It would be hard to find a more user-friendly pocket cruiser than the Ranger Tugs R-27. Its two-cabin, one-head layout is made for cruising with a small family or a few friends; its light-filled salon makes living enjoyable, and its 300-hp Yamaha outboard delivers a 42-mph top speed that gets you where you want to go in a hurry. Ranger Tugs are made by Fluid Motion, in Kent,…

Cruising Life
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Trends 2020: More Cruising Boats with Outboard Power

Perhaps the strongest trend in recent years has been the rapid growth of outboard power on cruising boats, even on some of the most traditional brands. The reasons are easy to understand, and they start with performance. Outboard boats are fun, they’re fast and agile, and they’re easy to drive and park. Outboards also are easier to repair, maintain, and ultimately replace, if necessary, than traditional inboards are, and they open up a lot of space inside the boat where inboards used to be. And you don’t  have to worry about a lot of through-hulls, shafts, and struts. The HCB…

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