Vanderbilt's wife, Gertrude —the first woman to serve in a Cup defender's afterguard— christens Ranger as the yacht begins her slide into the Kennebec River on May 11, 1937.
The owner stepped Ranger‘s 165-foot duralumin mast (seen lashed to her deck at right) just after the launch so her builders could see her in full glory. It was an "expensive Iittle thought," he later wrote: The $15,000 mast broke off while Ranger was being towed to Newport.