bertram31.com

for the past 6 years i have been passing a Bertram 25 flybridge that has been sitting next to a barn and I finally decided to pull into the driveway and see what was going on with it. well I made a new friend, he's about 60 years older then I am and has owned the 68 hull since the mid 70s and has taken it all along the east coast. I was skeptical to asking if he would sell it but when I asked he said "its not for sale.. but it is looking for a new home". I left with the boat and 2 Volvo iq151 engines with 290 drives and I paid $1000 for the trailer it was sitting on.
the boat hasn't been used since 2005 and needs a good minor restoration. my plans are, fix a few stringers that are delaminating in spots, fill in the outdrive holes and install a bracket with twin Yamaha 200 hpdi, remove every wire in the boating redo all electronics, make a custom bait well in the rear, kind of where the old engine covers sit, install a small galley and head on the starboard side underneath the flybridge -I saw a really cool build on the facebook Bertram 25 club -.
my first few questions are

for the stringers delaminating, just cut out the bad sections and add new material? where the batteries used to sit in the engine bay. that piece is all banged up, is it structural?

to fill in the outboard drive holes does any1 have any posts or links of the process? I know its not a very difficult job but I am unsure if I have to support the transom after or anything.

what brand brackets do you recommend? I have called up Armstrong, A&J marine, Stainless Marine and I am liking the price different that A&J quotes me. $3100 for twins I just have to make a template and send it to them to match my transom.

any other advise would be greatly appreciated. I am starting this project in the next month and I have 3 months off work during the winter and I got a garage to keep the boat in so hopefully a lot of progress will be made before this upcoming spring and maybe be able to fish off it summer of 2019

here are a few pictures of the beauty. a few pictures are from the 70s but check out the sweet ladder and bow rail the previous owner had made

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... e=5BDA8111
https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... e=5C13F899
https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... e=5BDBE447

Nice! Keep the pictures coming of your re-do.

Wow! That's going to be fun!

The stringers are 100% fiberglass, so you shouldn't need to cut anything out to fix any de-bonding issues.
What year is the boat? Do you have the center stringer in the grid?
The bump out part of the transom is made with 2, 3/4 inch plywood pieces. Cut the inner glass away until you reach good wood, make wood plug, install, re-glass and reinforce inside (for bracket), fill outdrive holes with glass, fair until your arms fall off. paint. It's not easy. A guy on Hull Truth skipped all these steps and simply cut off the entire transom and make a flat back transom. Makes the bracket design simple. Look at the Bertram25 thread on the Hull Truth site for pictures.

I studied the bracket route, but chose another path. I think the key is getting the bracket height on the transom exactly right. I would do everything possible to find someone with a bracket system that works well and copy it. No sense being a pioneer.

Good luck and have fun with it! Having a garage for the boat makes all the difference between a fun project and a real pain!

Cam

I am no expert by any means but I will be going through a lot of the steps that you have been describing sooner than you will in restoring my B25.

My thought would be to watch a few of my posts and see where the steps I do make sense and avoid all the mistakes that I will make.

Right now I've gutted the boat, removed the wood from the transom and have begun prepping the stringers for reinforcement. Over the next week I am going to template for new 3/4" BS1088 meranti marine ply transom core and prep it to go into the boat. I have 2 weeks of vacation in august so might take a couple of weeks to get done but should have the new transom core bonded in and glassed by september. Hopefully I also get the stringers reinforced by then as well but time is going to be a struggle as I really only get to work on the boat 1-2 hrs a day after work.

Cool, looking forward to seeing it!

the boat is a 1968 hull, it does have the center stringer that I can see through the front floor hatch. I know in the 90s the boat started to take on water from a support midship chaffed through the hull on both sides. that issue was repaired and he made inspection instead of seeking the floor back up. In the next few weeks I will be cleaning the entire boat out, removing all wiring, and start on the stringer repairs then to the transom and ordering a bracket. does any1 in the Connecticut area have a converted 25? would be real nice to see another boat so I know what I am getting myself into. also if any1 is interested in the previous engines that were in the boat Volvo iq151 with 290 drives I will be selling those to help fund some of the project

and for the bump out part of the transom I will be making a template to send to A&J marine and the new bracket will form around "notch" they call it.

Nice find. Best of luck.

Just remember this group is fond of Pictures.

Do the mooring light look lie they were installed at the factory, or were they added later?

the nav light on the bow is original, I have never seen anything like it. the anchor light on the bridge looks factory and the 2 headlights I'm sure are aftermarket. once I get her clean up I will take more detailed photos and will be removing the outdrives this weekend and make up my bracket template. has any1 here ever heard of Alan Outboard out of Queens NY? its a few hour drive for me but he sells rebuilt Yamaha's and I haven't heard anything bad from him yet. he quoted me $7k for twin 200 hdpi with controls and everything, he has to get back to me with exact hours. I can hear them run with the scan tool hooked up to them when I go to check them out