This contest completely exceeded my expectations, with the amazing stories you all have shared I think I can speak for the entire factory when saying it was difficult to vote for just one winner! The good new is that there will now be a winner for Ranger Tugs and a winner for Cutwater Boats!
I can't thank you all enough for sharing your stories, they have been very fun to read and I know our entire factory is glad to see that they're building more than just a boat, but something much more personal, a platform for building lifelong memories and creating adventures that otherwise couldn't be. With that said,
The winner for Ranger Tugs is Bill K.
"This is Ranger Tug “Cookie”, a 2012 R27. Here’s the story behind the name. It’s a long one. I hope you understand.
My father was a WWII Pacific Theater combat veteran. After the war came to its abrupt end, my father had to wait in the Philippines several months for his turn to go back home. He was just 19 years old. During the wait, he and a friend came into possession of an 18’ boat, fixed it up, and put an engine in it they got from the Navy.
My father wrote many letters to his girlfriend back home. That girlfriend later became my mother. My mother kept every letter he wrote, more than 100 in all. The letters detailed his life in the Army, and after obtaining the boat, he wrote about the progress of fixing it up.
My mother wrote him nearly every day. She knew he loved boating because they spent time on the water together with friends before he went into the Army. In some letters, she would include magazine advertisements she cut out for him promoting boats that would be available after the war.
After finishing work on the boat, my father and his friend only got to enjoy it for five weeks before it was destroyed in a typhoon. It would be the only boat he ever owned.
A year after my father returned from overseas, he and my mother married. Starting in the early 1950s, they added three kids to the baby boom. All of my father’s time and money went to providing for his family and he started a business in the early 1960s. Tragically, just as his business was starting to flourish, in 1967 both he and my mother were killed in a car accident. I was 10 years old.
Fifteen years later, in 1982, my two sisters and I went through things that had been put in storage after the accident. In bags of seemingly useless papers, I found the 100+ letters my mother had kept. My father began many letters to my mother using her nickname— “My Dearest Cookie,” he would write.
In one letter written in November 1945, he told my mother his name for the boat. He wrote, “I think we’ll call it “Cookie” in honor of you. It’s a swell boat and you’re a swell girl.”
When I bought my Ranger Tug in 2017, I named it “Casper’s Cruiser” as a nod to the boat my father never had. However, in a bit of serendipity, my daughter, as part of a gift project, went through the letters my mother had kept. In that process, she discovered the passage about naming the Philippines boat. I had seen it years ago, but had forgotten all about it.
After some discussion, it was decided that a name change for the Ranger Tug from “Casper’s Cruiser” to “Cookie” was in order.
My daughter is named after my mother and, like her namesake, she is a highly skilled artist. She created the boat name graphics by scanning my father’s handwriting from the actual letter where he told my mother he was naming his boat “Cookie” in her honor. A local sign shop then made up the decals.
In another amazing bit of serendipity, the profile drawing of his boat my father included in that letter bears a remarkable resemblance to a Ranger Tug!
So there’s the story. I’m just delighted that there’s another boat carrying on the name “Cookie.”
And the winner for Cutwater is Jerry and Colleen W.
"After purchasing our Cutwater 28 it came time to give her a name. We live in Utah, which is obviously a long way from the ocean, so buying a ocean (Saltwater) boat seemed to many to be a bit crazy.
We had contemplated many names, but one morning we were listening to music from one of our playlists and one of our favorite songs “Crazy Heart” came on. This prompted a discussion of possibly using the song title as a name. Shortly thereafter, I read an opinion article in Yachting magazine by Chris Caswell. In the article he writes that there is simply no way that we boat owners can justify the cost of our boats financially. He concludes with, “If you try to justify it in your wallet, you’ll miss out with your heart.”
At that moment we knew our boat’s name: CRAZY HEART"
