As a prospective owner of an 2010 Ranger Tug R-29 S Luxury, what things possible problesm or issues should I be aware of and look into more closely? She was last surveyed not too many years ago for "condition and value" but I don't believe that all the systems were actually run and carefully checked out. Many thanks for any information.
Problems and Issues with R-29
- Thread starter Lee
- Start date
SKing
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- Fusako
Hire a surveyor that has experience with Ranger Tugs.
You can crawl all over the boat in advance of your down payment but make it conditional on the survey. Then be there with the surveyor and let them be the bad guy in your negotiations after his report. There are bound to be additional things that the surveyor will bring up in their report that you can have the seller take care of.
All of the mechanical items on the boat are made by other suppliers. Ranger Tugs design has been good, so the issues that come up are componet failures. The only design complaints you see on this forum are problems accessing equipment, or wishing they had used x as a supplier instead of y.
You can crawl all over the boat in advance of your down payment but make it conditional on the survey. Then be there with the surveyor and let them be the bad guy in your negotiations after his report. There are bound to be additional things that the surveyor will bring up in their report that you can have the seller take care of.
All of the mechanical items on the boat are made by other suppliers. Ranger Tugs design has been good, so the issues that come up are componet failures. The only design complaints you see on this forum are problems accessing equipment, or wishing they had used x as a supplier instead of y.
Thanks for the ideas!
Thanks.
We bought a 2014 this spring and our surveyor didn't find half of what we ended up fixing this year. Our surveyor was not a good one, as we have come to learn, and he missed a lot of things. We are still thrilled with it and the deal we got, but we were working on something almost every time we went out.
If you intend to trailer the boat, make sure a trailer is included in your discussions! A majority of the 29's we looked at did not have one included and buying one is shockingly expensive. If you are getting a trailer with the deal, insist on new tires all around. We didn't and ended up replacing them before the sun set the day we towed it home. That was a rough day.
As far as things to check: The most important one I have learned since becoming an owner would be to get the boat up to WOT during the sea trial and try to hold it there for 15+ minutes to make sure you have access to the entire rev range and it doesn't overheat in those conditions. Both issues are very solvable and not a huge red flag, but that should be the sellers problem, not yours. A lot of owners of these boats have run them at 1600-1800 RPM from the day they bought to the day they sold, which isn't particularly good for the engine. Volvo says to get the motor running close to WOT periodically to help burn out soot ect. When we first got ours we would get too hot at 3000 rpm, did a rydlyme treatment and habitually did hot runs to work the motor up. Now we never get hot but we only have access to 3300 rpm. It's been slowly improving as we use the boat more at speed, but we have a ways to go yet. Make sure the generator starts up easy and can hold a load for a while. The previous owners hardly ever ran it and it requires quite a bit of work (time, not money, luckily) to get going again. Outside of those 2 items, most components are pretty easy to work on or replace if you have an issue with them, so if the deal is good and you don't mind putting some work in you can do pretty well for yourself.
Good luck to you! It is a truly special boat and I hope you get to enjoy it as much as we have enjoyed ours.
If you intend to trailer the boat, make sure a trailer is included in your discussions! A majority of the 29's we looked at did not have one included and buying one is shockingly expensive. If you are getting a trailer with the deal, insist on new tires all around. We didn't and ended up replacing them before the sun set the day we towed it home. That was a rough day.
As far as things to check: The most important one I have learned since becoming an owner would be to get the boat up to WOT during the sea trial and try to hold it there for 15+ minutes to make sure you have access to the entire rev range and it doesn't overheat in those conditions. Both issues are very solvable and not a huge red flag, but that should be the sellers problem, not yours. A lot of owners of these boats have run them at 1600-1800 RPM from the day they bought to the day they sold, which isn't particularly good for the engine. Volvo says to get the motor running close to WOT periodically to help burn out soot ect. When we first got ours we would get too hot at 3000 rpm, did a rydlyme treatment and habitually did hot runs to work the motor up. Now we never get hot but we only have access to 3300 rpm. It's been slowly improving as we use the boat more at speed, but we have a ways to go yet. Make sure the generator starts up easy and can hold a load for a while. The previous owners hardly ever ran it and it requires quite a bit of work (time, not money, luckily) to get going again. Outside of those 2 items, most components are pretty easy to work on or replace if you have an issue with them, so if the deal is good and you don't mind putting some work in you can do pretty well for yourself.
Good luck to you! It is a truly special boat and I hope you get to enjoy it as much as we have enjoyed ours.
Thanks for your suggestions. I never would have thought about that! I will be sure to include that in the mechanical survey.
fishheadbarandgrill
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Check out my post regarding the aft air conditioner raw water hose between the AC in the cave and the hull fitting.
Sea Spirit
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Lee, be sure to ask when the vessel’s sea water cooling system was last serviced, as Volvo (and I’m sure Yanmar) recommend servicing every 7 years. We bought our 2013 R-29 in August 2025 and were grateful our surveyor identified this issue. (At our sea trial the engine overheated when running full throttle.) The seller (who had sparsely used the boat over the 5 years he owned it) did not know, so we assumed the cooling system had never been serviced and made our offer taking this into consideration. The estimate we were given (sight unseen) was for ~$2,500 but it turned out to be $5,000 when completed. Not terrible for a vessel of this size and value, but it’s always better to know than to not know. Even with low engine hours (perhaps especially with low hours) marine growth can clog up sea water intakes and pipes, reducing the heat exchanger’s capacity to cool.
Be sure to request your surveyor send a sample of the engine oil out for analysis. It takes only a few days to get the results but I’m told they can determine a ton of things about the engine condition from the oil sample. In our case we felt immeasurably better plunking down a ton of dough for 12-year old Sea Spirit when holding oil lab test results showing her engine was in good shape.
If you’re in the PNW let me know and I would be pleased to share the name of our surveyor. They tend to identify everything under the sun but you can narrow your review of the report to the tougher or more expensive items for factoring into your offer or revising your offer—and prioritize the rest of the issues into your “to do” list. We’re very happy we did so.
Hope this helps.
Fred T
Sea Spirit
Be sure to request your surveyor send a sample of the engine oil out for analysis. It takes only a few days to get the results but I’m told they can determine a ton of things about the engine condition from the oil sample. In our case we felt immeasurably better plunking down a ton of dough for 12-year old Sea Spirit when holding oil lab test results showing her engine was in good shape.
If you’re in the PNW let me know and I would be pleased to share the name of our surveyor. They tend to identify everything under the sun but you can narrow your review of the report to the tougher or more expensive items for factoring into your offer or revising your offer—and prioritize the rest of the issues into your “to do” list. We’re very happy we did so.
Hope this helps.
Fred T
Sea Spirit
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We have contracted to purchase a RT 31 that hopefully will close next week. I insisted that the engine be run at WOT during the sea trial to for potential overheating. And yes, it did end up running hot (above 185 degrees) and was included in the surveyor's report. We pushed this back to the seller, so the heat exchanger is being cleaned prior to the closing at their expense. We could get the RPM's up to a max of 3,400 which is pretty close to (what I understand is) the factory spec of 3,500. When the boat was removed from the water, the prop had a bit of growth and the bottom paint needs to be refreshed. We're having the bottom redone and the prop, rudder and trim tabs cleaned and painted with Prop Speed. Hopefully this will allow us to get to 3,500 RPM's. The real goal isn't to run this high, but it gives confidence we can run at 3,000 - 3,200 without issue.
Thanks for the reply and recommendations. I am in the PNI but I have a good surveyor already, - but thanks.
fishheadbarandgrill
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2018
- Messages
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- Fluid Motion Model
- C-288 C
- Non-Fluid Motion Model
- Sunfish; Vespa GTS 300 Super
- Vessel Name
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- MMSI Number
- 368069690
Read my post regarding operating temps for the Yanmar 6BY2-260. The Yanmar runs hotter than the VP engines in the newer boats.