bertram31.com

Hello everybody, hope all is well and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at the Rendezvous this summer!!
New Project:






This is the plug that came out of the hole saw when I installed the garboard drain in my new 31 (1979).. Just curious if it looks thicker than the average 31 hull? The hull seems to be considerably thicker in some areas than in Summer Winds (1967), do you think this can be attributed to the fact that it was a hull designed for police/military or do you think the layup got thicker in some areas in the late 70's?






Hoping to have her at the rendezvous this year... More of a reality than Summer Winds right now...

I want that boat!
i love my FBC but i think the sedan is the sweetest one of all

John,

The main thickness variations in the hulls are in the areas where overlaps in the layup occur. If the plug you cut was very low/center of the transom then it's about normal for a post 1970 hull. On hull #60, (9/1961), that same spot was over 1 1/4" thick. Your's appears to be about 3/4".

Was that one of the old Virginia Marine Patrol boats? The Cape Charles or the Wicomico, maybe?

i came very close to buying a sedan down in wilmington nc, the boat was used to go back and forth from bald island if i remmember correctly, think it was a 62, needed work original 440s

I like that boat alot, at the fear of getting lynched much more then the bridge boats

Tommy Gifford, a pioneer of deep sea fishing use to run one with a tower called the Stormy Petrel, it summered in Montauk.

What happened to your Summer Winds project?

At this point Summer Winds is on the back burner completely gutted and potetially for sale... It still needs a ton of work and capital and I just dont have the time or dinero atm...

robbie your not going to get lynched because i owned the fbc in the photo and from my experiance in the atlantic offshore.the sedan would be the best boat in a storm . don`t get me wrong you could do the same with a bahia-mar but you need a hardtop and bulkhead the sedan has it from the factory . this sedan with low center of gravity is the closest you ca get to a downeasterner the ultimate rough water boat. a lightweight tower is a suppliment for fairweather but inside that cabin with heat/ac total weather protection with double the size scuppers and sealed hinged cockpit floor hatches -----bring on your gale warnings mother nature!!

just out of curiosity....if everyone is lustin after the sedan it seems like it would be REAL easy to make one from a bridge boat. a sportfish with the lower helm would be a good candidate.

although it is a rarity, i am not sold on the visibility ---i could not imagine running any boat looking thru a windshield all the time, especially a boat that takes so much spray over the bow--that windshield would be covered in salt in no time. may be a good model for enforcement work, but looking for birds or fins would not be optimum

You also have to figure in how much Bob likes to f'glass in the windshield--then it'd be a real trick to run.

Whaler-

Nice boat--good luck with her.

craig
no different then my boat, just keep the wipers going, as for birds i can find them on the radar

john i like the color

Rawleigh, this boat looks like one I saw on craigslist last fall in FL for $5K! It's not the Wicomico. I have it over at Chesapeake Cove Marina. Rob pulled the engines and bench tested them last fall. I thought they had over 1600 hours on them but he said the computer showed just ove 200 each and in pretty good shape. Made my day! He is going to fix a few things and put em back in hopefully for the rockfish season this spring. I plan to get over there to clean-up the engine bays as soon as I can. I came close to buying the sedan on craigslist then came to my senses. I have a hard enough time finshing one project. It's just that they are so pretty! Married life good to ya? I'm sure it is! I'll give you a call when I'm over that way and maybe we can meet-up. Glenn

no john no change to winshield this is a modern day "quote on quote pilot house boat" by saying that it becomes 350,000 in 32' range quite stupid but that todays trend . lets see 31' bertram sedan cummins powered with a few tricks about 1/4 of a million dollars less give or take with grady white we have for sale. one of a kind "reinvent the wheel "again motor mounts by sim machine shop. engine sitting on bilge no stringers side to side titanium mounts . all the tricks about 36mph cruise in 6' waves 18 gallons a hour give or take. sit inside on sofa in heat or a/c impervious to outside conditions

Bob- Just kidding about the windshield. 36 knts. in 6' waves? Ouch.

Glenn-

Hope all is well. Get her together and we can meet out on the Bay. Did you get a tank?

John

Sound good Glenn! She hasn't thrown me out of the house yet, so i guess i am doing OK! LOL!! I still have that AC unit if you are interested.

Great looking boat John!

Should be fun! Slap a low tower on her, and have an upper level station and she will rock!!!! Not literally however...and that is a good thing.

Very cool! An exclusive club of two Bertram owners! I am not one of them... ;)

Dug

John, Great boat, love the sedans myself, my bahia mar is going hard top windshield route...Like Brewster says like sitting in a tank..with all the waves bustin on and over you in the nasty stuff, the last thing I want to keep me dry is a plastic enclosure..BH

Visibility is the big down side with these boats. You can cruise faster then you can see in the lower station. Maybe not a big factor when your not in the Lower New York Harbor...but here it makes for lots of haul outs to change shafts and props. Ask me how I know...

Boats are wet...but the wipers work real good...even better Rain-X. Tell you the truth...if its raining or sprays blowing back at you hard you can see a whole lot better from a lower helm with wipers then an uncovered bridge or tower.

and even a light rain feel like bullets hitting your face .canyon running is differant ,you could run for 10 miles in 3 to 4' waves and i be damm along comes a rogue wave and knocks you silly. look at my boat in the picture along side the sedan one big wave hits that tower and your dead meat ,so bad you might have a problem getting home with the soft top blown off and the instuments surmerge in salt water. the sedan will give you a few heart palpitation as you feel like you "went under" but she pops up . this boat will have fresh water,batterys,fuel all inline with cummins diesel engines on the bilge floor you have the lowest center of gravity ever created in a 31 bertram.

hell bob....marshall (suzi's pissed) and i ran 55 miles in adriving rain with no enclosure. we had to keep resetting the GPS because his glasses got so wet he couldnt see at all . "um , randall...tell me when we're 15 degrees off"

my boat has a lower helm..........very very nice in hard rain.

Love to see a cad stress analysis of how things change in a B31 when you cut out the outboard stringer out of the center of the boat just to lower the engine.

It goes against all thing natural. Egg Harbor did it years ago to fit fuel tanks with disastrous results.

I know the hull under my engines moves considerably up and down, do you use a custom oil pan to leave a few inches of clearence on the outboard side.

Just curious not startin crap

Where did the idea of cutting out a stringer come from? I'm pretty sure that Bob is just using a figure of speech when he mentions putting the engines on the bilge floor... Some hull flex is surely understood...

Maybe Bob can help with some shots of the outboard stringer and engine mounts.

Ive seen the outboard stringer and so has everyone else with a 31, its dead stock height... The engine isnt actually laying on the hull if thats the assumption... There were no extreme modifications made to the hull..
-J

John, things are good here. I didn't get to splash last summer because I decided to bite the bullet and pull the engines and go through em. Being the fourth set of engines in a marine police boat you can imagine what other stuff we found that needed to be torn-out or fixed. At least the engines tested great on the bench but will see how they do under load. Even though good gas is still available in Deltaville I will likely go ahead and do the tank this summer, too much at risk not to. Hey, I'm determined she splashes this spring engines in or not! I'd be happy to paddle around the cove at this point, NOT! I'll give you a call. I saw your pics, what a nice looking boat! I need to see more and get some info from you on how to make my windows look as good as yours.

Rawleigh, Thats a good sign but has she thrown anything "AT YOU" LOL! Oh-yeh, still want the AC if you'll hold it till spring. It's probably covered up with something else by now, just kidding. If you need me to send a check just let me know. I think I'll be over sometime in March and look forward to visiting. I'll give you a call.

Ive seen the outboard stringer and so has everyone else with a 31,

As a complete nobody I haven't seen the outboard stringer and engine mounts on Bob's boat and assume the engine had been lowered considerably or moved forward to achieve a lower shaft angle.

Again pics would help me understand how the install happened. Sorry I'm a little slow, must of worn my helmet to tight on the bus today.

ok jp first of all you disappointed me on the post about filters . i gave a hint that would be unspeakable a few years back.it never dawn on you "why would this guy put the filters in the compartment behind the engine room" big big plus i let you sit on it, but if your looking for free hp you have to tell me when and why you change livelining to ells or clam.and why some bait like shad go to the bottom.
the engineering that is holding up the engines in phoenix is what out a doubt the strongest ever put into a 31 bertram! can it be repeated ---no not unless i became friends with sim and let him figure out how the hell i went thru bags of drill bits with that space age titanium out of a discarded f-14 tomcat.you could put a shot class on the engine without vibration ,i even calulated angle of engine to put cross brace between stringers and stanger bolted thru fishplated bulkhead.the stingers are caped with U channel 1/2" titanium. yes i cut down outside stringer a little and the gear pan is 1/2" off the bilge floor.you can believe how rigid the boat is because rear bulkhead is also tie into a belly band around the perrimeter of cockpit.like crazy strong belive.

jp this is the only photo i have .look at the main bulkhead that 1/2' stock cross piece is all welded in place to the two u-channel and inturn bolted to bulkhead the same as back of u-channel you can see the lip that connected to the rear bulkhead and inturn the belly band. i antisipated boat riding bow proud so i could "get on top" much faster cruise speed and less resistance thus better fuel economy but mid- ships would take high speed pounding that what all the bracing is about.look inside a apba race boat open class.this sedan will be the same way but no titanium!!!

OK Bob seriously titanium??? is that really necessary
is that stuff hard to weld? :-D

i could not control the weld heat so i gave it to a pro.phil warnet at east end and he did the welding.i knew i would abuse the boat so i added some extra beef where i through i would need it.tieing the stringers together eliminates the lateral movement, which would be the case of normal mounting . it might be said the engine is acting as a tie but due to the barry mounts this is not the case.

Bob you lost me on the filter comment but don' worry If you hang around long enough I'm sure I'll disappoint you again, just ask my wife; regarding eels, clams, herring or bunkers. The only way to learn is to come on down and do it. Yup that invite is still open to you.

Whaler,
I thought I remembered that Bob had lowered the stringer (cut it away) to get the shaft angle changed. Nice to know the brain is still working.

whooops... shows how much i know..

i lower the engine by making offset rear gear mounts .front mounts sits right on stringer. outside stringer is cut slightly.

1/2" Ti U-Channel...yeah.


1/2" Alum U-Channel would have been considered overkill in my book.



Welding Ti is not difficult...just entails the proper procedures from beginning to end. The welder that taught me used to weld it all the time...I did a little just to say I welded it, but he did all the set up before and after the actual weld.

sim it was not at all like welding alluminum 6061 . i had a problem making a nice continuous weld . this is the 5" right angle plate that supports the nose landing gear. i use one flat plate and one right angle and welded tham together. drilling with regular bits was useless so i went to titanuim drill bit wore out in a minute so i went to 1/4" then 5/16" then 3/8" and finally 1/2" with carbon bits this worked so i stagger 1/2" bolts along entire channel thru bolted . very differcult metal to work with. 1/2" angle and flat 6061 is both easy to aquire and cut ,drill ,weld.---live and learn

For Ti, my guy used to back purge the welds along with pre and post heating.

Bob, the right tools for the job make all the difference.

Those TIN coated drills only work well when the underlying material is descent. Most hardware places add a few bucks for the "Gold Color" and the "Titanium" coated wording, but the material under the drill is just crap. In that case your better off buying a "Quality HSS Drill" or going up a notch for a Cobalt drill. Of course the right speed and feed in a drill press won't hurt either.

sorry i said carbon i meant cobalt i acquire my machine tools from MSC. and internet sourses . i use a hand 1/2" drill and broke my balls but had to drill it in the boat to go thru stringer at same time .i have my own method for engine installation . from a empty boat i install laser on rudder and establish a center line point on the bulkhead then work from there with a engine jig.entire driveline is establish one piece there is no shiming or checking clearance at shaft coupling . hold engine suspended with forklift and mico adjustment engine lift .shaft log is home made.

I've seen the laser alignment used on Tugs and on one sportfish with intermediate bearings. Much easier then playing with a string.

Hindsight is always 20/20,,, but if you do something like that again you can try drilling one side in a drill press, mount t stringer, drill thru stringer, spot hole 2nd hole, remove and finish up in a drill press.

Hand drill....way too much work for me...

Bob,

tell the truth - you used a slide rule and a abacus

Bob is NO JOKE! He does not play.

Guys

Don't make fun of the abacus. A lot was done with slide rules and abacus before computors existed. Also, if you have never seen an abacus used, those that know how to use one can arrive at the answer just as fast as you can using a calculator.

How the dam things work is beyond me but they work.

robbie are you coming up with a color scheme for the sedan? if i remember it goes something like this " this chart is for the john q public but for your bertram" we have never been seen before ------
sure enought he came up with a beautiful tone of blue!!!

sim i posted my idea for a target when using lazer alignment in the past. just go to automotive store and buy engine freeze out plugs in the exact diameter you need and push into struct.then lazer beam goes from rudder thru 1/16" hole drilled in freeze out plug to spot on painted white main bulkhead wall.a real perfectionist would then put same style plugs in free floating captain patrick shaft log . aligh and glass in right in that exact spot if you move log you instantly "lose" spot of red light on bulkhead wall.no guesswork.

bob lico wrote:robbie are you coming up with a color scheme for the sedan? if i remember it goes something like this " this chart is for the john q public but for your bertram" we have never been seen before ------
sure enought he came up with a beautiful tone of blue!!!

I already pictured that boat as my own and what color I would paint it, but I aint telling'!