Bertram Yachts New Website New Direction

[Stephen Shadegg]

All,

If anyone is interested, the new Bertram Yacht website is in the process of being built.

However, you can now download the owner manuals for any size Bertram produced from day one.

Its a good start if you ask me.

http://www.bertram.com/

Stephen

[Carl]

I wish all American companies well.

It would be nice to aspire to buying a new Bertram someday.

...and your right, the website does look to have them on the right path. But easy to show a vision at startup...sometimes that vision gets blurred as things progress.

Best of luck to you Bertram!

[IRGuy]

It would be great to see someone with new ideas (and great experience in the American boatbuilding industry) take over. The new owner says he is serious, and I certainly hope he is, but time will tell.

We here, and on the B33 site, are a pretty committed group, and we have great interest in what happens to the Betram name, but the "general boating public", probably has little interest.. so many boat builders have foundered, been absorbed, or just plain went bankrupt that to them, I suspect, Bertram is just another name added to the bottom of the failed boat builder's list.

I believe there could be a place for a boatbuilder who started off producing rugged, simple and traditional looking boats in the 26-36 foot range, with prices that were within the reach of the guys who are buying single and twin (maybe even triple) outboards today. With Bertram's past reputation, and a fresh approach to the above market, I suspect lots of boat owners will be watching what happens with the new owner.

But.. the flip side is this is a risky venture.. and the new owner needs to do a bunch of market research, and talk with a lot of the heavy hitters in the boatbuilding industry. IMHO the worst thing he could do is try to sell the swoopy windowed. glitzy type of boat the Europeans, and now some American companies are building. Has anybody see the new Meridians or Marquis? Yuck.

[Tony Meola]

Maybe we should send the owner well wishes from all the faithful. Then invite him to one of the get Together next year so he can figure out why we refer to ourselves as the faithful.

Faithful owners buy new boats from the company they have come to respect.

[scot]

I like it. Regardless of what they end up building, the new owners definitely know the marketing value of the heritage and that is a great start. Providing the manuals as downloads was a great idea. Any company that has provided a product for 50+ years should be capable of accessing original specifications and sharing them with product owners. Raymond C Hunt had quick access and pulled some COB & COG data on the B25 hull for me. Really left me with the feeling those guys are in it for the long haul. They understood the "name / brand value" for Raymond C Hunt by answering my questions and treating me with courtesy. I'm sure they get plenty of calls and could easily have dismissed my questions, just put me on hold or sent me to voice mail.

The site really gives you the impression that the company understands the value of the name and the legacy associated with the name. I was proud to have a Bertram just after spending time on the site LOL. I will reserve my bets on the success of the new owners until after I see what they intend to build, but I am optimistic they will honor the name.

[Chanse]

"you can now download the owner manuals for any size Bertram produced from day one."
Not quite, unless they never made a 26.

[Navatech]

Actually, these manuals were there all along... There just was no easy way to get at them... However, if you knew how to use Google they were recoverable... And, while they have put the basic owner's manuals on-line they haven't put the system or electrical manuals on-line...

Talking about manuals, I have finished reworking the manual for the Bertram 31... It's here for viewing and downloading...

[Carl]

What a job Navatech!

Should put in a new post labeled as such so nobody misses it.

Great job, thank you,

Carl

[Navatech]

What a job Navatech!

Should put in a new post labeled as such so nobody misses it.

Great job, thank you,

Carl

Thanks!... It was about 6 hours of work... Running the PDF through the OCR, adjusting the graphics and inserting the text (it wasn't a simple cut & paste, it included some hand typing and all of the formatting)...

I'm hoping Capt. Pat sees it and puts it somewhere on the server for all to download when needed... If he doesn't say something soon I'll PM him...

[jprobins]

Hmm. Well it looks like they overlooked my 26.6 Sport Convertible II when they were uploading those manuals.