Advantage Tour 2019
Most fathers, especially first time fathers, can relate to the story I am about to tell.
You hear that you are going to be a dad. Hopefully that news makes your chest puff out, puts some pep in your step and all is right with the world. Then about three seconds later, your head gets filled with all the details and all the worries that go along with being a father. For a period of time, this “fatherhood” idea is more of a concept and in my case at least, this concept was kind of abstract filled with a lot of details, warnings and well wishes that didn’t really have a concrete image to go along with them. Then the day came when the doctor showed us the ultrasound pictures and everything got real.
Today, I had a very similar experience as I attended the Ranger Advantage Tour in Arkansas. I knew that my new Ranger 521L had been ordered and I had heard from my dealer, Sam Rosefsky, at Bedford Sales, that production had started but I had no clue as to what stage of production I would see. As we started the tour, we learned how over 1,100 Ranger employees work to build each Ranger boat, one boat at a time, to make some of the highest quality Walleye, Coastal, and in my case, Bass boats ever made. In fact, our tour guide shared that between 400 and 500 man hours of work go into the building of each boat. Witnessing this provided new insight on the value each customer is receiving when purchasing a Ranger boat.
The painstaking process of applying custom ordered multicolor gel-coats is the first step in the boat building process. After the gel-coat is applied, a one to two day process of laying in fiberglass reinforced with Rangers’ patented pultrusion is followed by another day and a half of cutting. Keep in mind, at this point in the process the boat is being built in two halves, a top and a bottom. After some initial pre-rigging, the two halves are then joined together and for the first time, the boat is actually beginning to take shape. From this stage, additional rigging, wiring and carpeting is added to the shell of this newly formed boat.
As we toured the facilities, it was amazing to see how many different individuals had a hand in building each and every boat being produced. Many of these individuals have worked at Ranger Boats for over 20 years. In the final rigging stage, engines, consoles, and additional accessories are added to the boat. Ranger Boats is one of the few boat companies that make their own seats, consoles, and trailers. Yet another reason why Ranger Boats truly crafts their own boats rather than just assembling boat parts.
It was in this final rigging stage of the tour that I had my first “ultrasound” moment. There I saw my boat that I will be finishing out of in the 2020 FLW PRO Circuit in the final stages of rigging prior to being delivered to Bedford Sales. The months of planning, hundreds of phone calls, hours of discussion and sleepless nights all got real at that moment. But along with that realization came the understanding that Ranger Boats’ long history of handcrafting quality boats is still going strong today.
