J5 Ranger   /   J Class Sloop

Referred to as the 'Super J' since her defence of the America's Cup against Endeavour ll, Ranger was built at the Danish Yachts shipyard in Skagen, Denmark. The Ranger project has been in development since its conception in September 1999 and it's team of designers, naval architects and industry specialists has designed a yacht that recreates the look and feel of the existing J class yachts Shamrock V, Endeavour and Velsheda. Ranger has been built to Lloyds Classification , the MCA code of practice for the safety of large commercial yachts and the J Class Association Rules. Ranger had an extensive refit led by Dykstra Naval Architects to optimise her performance in 2005/2006.

Dykstra Naval Architects have gained over 30 years of J-Class experience and where responsible for the rebuilds of the J-Class yachts: JK3 Shamrock V, JK7 Velsheda, JK4 Endeavour, performance refit of J5 Ranger, the new builds JK6 Hanuman and JH2 Rainbow and J Yankee on the drawing board. To keep the J-Class fleet and races alive and to encourage new build yachts to enter the field, new JCA maximum performance rules have been developed, including allowing aluminum as building material. The new rule is a VPP (Velocity Prediction Program) based rating system which puts limits to the performance. This new rule has been developed by the Dykstra Naval Architects office and the Wolfson Unit in Southampton. The aim of the JCA, the Dykstra team and the rule is to bring fair & close racing to the fleet and to give all designs a chance of winning (on a handicap based system). Over the years the Dykstra team gained an enormous amount of hands-on information by racing on all the Dykstra J's in the current fleet.

Ranger
J-Class Association