Curated Cocktails

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Thursday, August 11, 2022 5 to 7 pm
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On the museum’s harborview patio with great food & music!
Generously sponsored by Plains All American

This edition of Curated Cocktails spotlights the Captain’s Chair from Ranger, one of two wooden fighting chairs from Ranger, the flagship boat of SBMM’s permanent collection.

The Boat

Ranger is the oldest wooden boat in the Santa Barbara Harbor and SBMM’s cherished flagship. In 1917, she was designed by Homer Evans and constructed by boatbuilders Fellows & Stewart Inc., in Wilmington, California, for sport fisherman and Tuna Club member James W. Jump. Known among his angling peers as the “King of Light Tackle,” Jump cruised the remote stretches of water around the Channel Islands in Ranger, looking for fish big enough to land him in the record books, which he achieved several times, often taking annual awards for the largest fish caught on light tackle in the 1910s and 20s. Ranger has several subsequent owners, many of them also prolific fishermen.

The Captain

James Jump advised that a novice angler should begin with heavy tackle, and, once skill improved, then move on to lighter tackle. Jump wrote many articles and letters in response to the inquiries he received about his record-breaking fish. In one letter from 1918, Jump wrote that “the resiliency of the [light tackle] rod protects the line, and, in the hands of an expert angler, the breaking point is seldom reached. This being the case, even with a light tackle line, it is only a question of skilful handling of the rod, reel, and line, and of the [boat].” In a 1910s article, Jump confirms again that “a good boatman is half the battle in fighting a swordfish or any other big game fish—more than half if the angler be a novice. He must be expert at guessing what the swordfish will do and manipulate the boat accordingly.” Newspaper articles confirm that Captain Kent Walker was at the helm for many of Jump’s record catches, and Walker appears frequently in print as a favorite of many other record-breaking anglers of that era, renowned for his skill at predicting and outmaneuvering big game fish with a variety of fishing vessels.

The Chair

When Jack Morehart donated Ranger to SBMM in 1997, this chair was installed as a captain’s chair and bolted to the deck in front of the ship’s wheel. The chair was removed shortly after to create more room for restoration work, and has spent the last two decades in the SBMM’s Kieding Collections Chandlery (KCC). While Ranger’s design and construction was relatively well documented, there are many theories about the origin of this chair. It appears quite old with intricate knotwork, and the seat has been modified. Could it have been one of the original fighting chairs, as described in the first article written about Ranger by Pacific Motor Boat and Motor Ship? The January 1918 article described the “cockpit [as] furnished with willow chairs and two revolving seats for convenience in fishing. The latter have removable backs.” In old photographs the fighting chairs are visible at the stern, but no captain’s chair is visible. Was this installed after a particularly long trip for the captain’s comfort? Or perhaps a subsequent owner modified it after installing new fighting chairs and didn’t want to see it go to waste? Ranger has undergone many modifications over the past century to suit the various cruising, fishing, and liveaboard needs of past owners, making it difficult to know exactly what happened. While we may not know exactly how this chair came to be, it’s fun to think of all the possibilities.