July / August 2025

Aboard: VOLUNTEER

The latest of Sydney’s Ranger class

Text and photographs by Nigel Sharp

VOLUNTEER is the latest member of the Ranger-class fleet on Australia’s Sydney Harbour. She is gaff rigged, as are her sisterships, but with a slightly different standing-rigging arrangement: most Rangers have swept-back spreaders with aft-leading upper shrouds and forward-leading lower shrouds. “That is just wrong for gaff rigs,” said her owner-builder, Ian Smith, who insists that lowers must lead aft to offset the forward force of the gaff jaws. “Aft uppers might give a tight forestay, but we have running backstays for that.”

With its large cockpit and distinctive raised deck, the Ranger-class sloop is the archetypal daysailer of Sydney Harbour, Australia. The original RANGER, which was 24' LOA and lug-rigged, was designed by Cliff Gale and built for him by Billy Fisher in a Sydney suburb in 1933. The Ranger class came about when four sisterships were built between then and 1953. Three more followed in this century, albeit all of them with some variations. While the original RANGER was lug rigged, gaff soon predominated, although one of them was once converted to Bermudan; she turned out to be slower than her sisters.

Ian Smith started planning a major project about 10 years before he retired as a professional boatbuilder in 2013. Although for many years he didn’t like the raised-deck styling of the Ranger class, he grew accustomed to their “unusual looks” and now thinks they are beautiful. In 2002, with the help of his then business partner Simon Sadubin, Ian took the lines off an original Ranger and built a suitable shed over his driveway. He began work on the boat, in earnest, in 2014 and launched the new boat, VOLUNTEER, in December 2024.

Since she was launched, VOLUNTEER has sailed in races run by the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club. She has been competitive, having beaten each of her sisters at least once, while they have each beaten her at least once. “Our main problem is that for the first few races we had no spinnaker, so in the spinnaker races the other boats get away from us downwind,” Ian said. “We are struggling now to learn how to handle modern spinnaker setups with beaked poles, topping lifts, and so on, as my foredeck crew have mostly been from historical 18-footers, where there is no topping lift and we just keep adding pole sections.”

Ian and his wife, Tricia, plan to cruise VOLUNTEER. They will spend nights aboard in Sydney Harbour, sometimes rafting up with other boats; and they may occasionally go out of the harbor and up the coast to Pittwater—an afternoon’s sail—but they are unlikely to go any farther.

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