Ranger To Build Aluminum Deep-V

[Wayne SW/MO]

I have a 17' Lowe deep V and I have to agree a rod box between the consoles doesn't look like a good place for it. There's nothing wrong with riveted aluminum bots, millions of them can't be wrong. I can't speak for all makes , but Lowe rarely saw a seeping rivet, probably no more often then a glass boat with a crack along the chine.

[rangerman]

I haven't seen any with problems down here Wayne.Up north on bigger waters on the other hand.....

[Old plug]

You can say what you want with the exception of some cheap of on things like switches and stuff Targa is a tough big water boat.

But the new one are not so good at all. Mine is about 11 yrs old i have had a couple of problems with wiring harness and the manual drain outplug. The plug was by far the most dangerous. Someone did not install it properly with the pop rivets and i have been running around here all these year with something held on by marine sealer. Way i found out I was installing a new bilge pump and wanted to git as much water out as possible to when i reached our to turn the screw in plug the entire unit fell out in my hand. They had install the pop rivets with using washers and they were just barely wedged into the holes.

[WHARFRAT]

I'm getting pressure from the wife about a deep V. I personally would rather have a bass boat style. Not a big fan of a WT windshield. Had a 20' Javelin back around 1992, and I hated it. Even with a boat that was 19-20' long, the W/S took up so much room.

She wants one b/c we have a 2yr old grandson, and she likes the safety aspect because of the deepness of it. But that being said, when I had the Javelin, it's the only boat, my son who was about 3 or 4 at the time, fell out of, into the water. So go figure.

I told her, if we went to a deep V, it will only be a single console. We checked out the Crestliner fishhawk 1750 and 1850, seems like you get a lot of bang for your buck, but, I'm still fighting her on the idea. I like my little Fisher Marshhawk. It gets me from point A to point B, about as economically as you can get.

[Wayne SW/MO]

The plug was by far the most dangerous. Someone did not install it properly with the pop rivets and i have been running around here all these year with something held on by marine sealer.

I'm surprised at that. Lowe TIG welded their tubes. My Tracker V17 is welded. That's a cost cutting at the lowest level!

[LarrySTL]

I agree with Wrench that the interior design looks difficult. The rod storage areas look cramped, those two dinky storage compartments in the rear look like they might be so small as to be functionless, and that front livewell/baitwell/whatever it is looks like it will be super shallow and quite possibly splashing and bouncing the snot out of any fish, large or bait size, that are in it.

The first fullsize bassboat I ever owned was an 18 foot 150 hp in a brand that isn't made anymore although it was a pretty wellmade boat. However, it had a front livewell at the rear edge of the front platform, centered to use as much of the hull depth as possible. I in a hard run it still sloshed around a lot splashed water everywhere and banged your fish up badly enough that I just stopped using it and put everything in the huge deep well thought out rear livewell.

Ranger at least historically paid a lot of attention to the suggestions from its tournament guys, both those in memo boats and those spending all their own money; if they still do that I suspect that the walleye guys will correct a lot of things about the interior layout by next model year.

Cosmetically, I agree its not a pretty boat, although having almost all of both the exterior and interior in battleship grey isn't helping the appearance a bit.