Ranger 11'

[TamBamK]

I purchased her a couple of winters ago. I'm hoping to learn to sail and finally got to take her out "sailing" today. Mostly just learning what we don't know and what to learn before trying again. We did capsize her and eventually got a tow back to dock. Everything worked out and we had fun. A couple of questions.

1. There are two semi sealed areas under the bow and stern. I assume they are supposed to help with buoyancy. What are these called? My google fo is failing me.
2. The semi sealed areas do have two small holes in the bottom of them. Hard to see in the pictures but they are there.
3. Should I be plugging these holes to keep the water out? Then let them drain between boating? When we capsized one of the problems is when I would get the boat righted the gunwales would be below or just at the water line. Very hard to bail out. The bow in particular would want to be below water. Once we got back to dock and got it righted and bailed out I noticed a lot of water draining out the bow area in particular.

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[jdrutten]

I would assume those are limber holes which are specifically designed to allow water to drain. I would also assume that the “semi-sealed” areas are filled with foam to provide flotation even if the boat is totally swamped and under water. If that’s true, I wouldn’t plug those holes. That said, I know nothing about your boat and I could be entirely mistaken so please don’t blame me if the boat sinks.

 

[TamBamK]

@jdrutten Yeah, that's what I was thinking as well. However, when the boat capsized it didn't float high enough when we righted it. The gunwales were below or just at the surface of the lake. Making it very difficult to help ourselves. The bow sat much lower then the stern. Afterwards a lot of water flowed out of the bow compartment. Perhaps there used to be foam there that has since deteriorated? The current plan is to find suitable plugs then capsize it close to shore repeatedly to see how it behaves.

 

[jdrutten]

The Ranger forum here looks pretty quiet, but you might be interested in this recent post from a former Ranger dealer: Ranger 12'

 

[TamBamK]

I've taken the boat out a few more times since and practiced capsizing and recovery. A few notes:
* There are styrofoam beads in the the two compartments. I believe enough of these have compressed or fallen out over the years that now a significant amount of water fills these up if the drain holes are submerged for any length of time. At some point I plan to buy some new beads, tip the boat on each end, and fill them as much as possible.
* My local hardware store helped me find these rubber plugs with screws in them. We added thumb screws. They expand into the hole when tightened. Had to drill the holes to 5/16 (a very minor enlargement). They work great. Not a perfect seal but slow things down.
* tried several methods of getting back into the boat after a capsize. Bow, and side were just not stable enough to make it back into the boat without another capsize. Personally I'm not strong enough to lift myself over the transom with just my arms. I forgot to try the navy seal horizontal method of getting into rafts. I was successful putting a loop of line over the pintles / gudgeons and put my foot in that to heave myself over while preventing the boat from capsizing again. Note I had to use the foot furthest away from the center of the boat in order to maintain stability. Do not put the line over the rudder / tiller! It will brake the tiller. I got this idea from a youtube video about getting into swamped canoes.

As an added bonus it seemed to lift the bow up and spill out some of the water when I went over the stern.