J u ly / A u g u s t 2 0 1 8 7 5 from left: courtesy j5 ranger; file photos (2); soundingsonline.com; j5 ranger courtesy photo Bounding Maine It was a moment stopped in time when we asked Peter Lacey, Supervisor of Naval Architecture at Bath Iron Works, to interview legendary yacht designer Olin J. Stephens II—who helped design the famed rac- ing sloop Ranger, built at BIW for Harold S. Vanderbilt. The original Ranger, designed by W. Starling Burgess and Stephens, swept the 1937 America’s Cup Series in four races. From the interview: Peter Lacey: I noticed that there was an aluminum strut on the Ranger’s boom; was it used to bend the boom to an airfoil shape? Olin Stephens II: That was the idea. It was kind of amusing because the Enterprise,the first Vanderbilt/Burgess boat,had what was called a Park Av- enue boom which you probably are familiar with. Lacey: Yes,like six-foot wide! Stephens: Very wide.The idea was to get curvature into the foot of the sail,and the Shamrock,which Enterprise raced against,had a bending boom more or less like the Ranger’s,and they would swap back from year to year– the English boat would have a bending boom and the American would have the Park Avenue boom,and then the next time they raced,it was liable to be the other. I don’t know whether either one meant very much.” 1937 Fromleft:Olin&RodStephens,HaroldS.Vanderbilt,andW.StarlingBurgessaboardRanger.