Bertram Closing Merritt Island Facility?

I am well aware of that thread, like I said you still have to prove the 50 knot (not 50 mph) Jim Smith with Modified Bevins DD's 8V-92's, shaft size et al.

Real proof not just I read it on a thread. And a real GPS, not one of the oldies with the infamous "Yacht Broker" calibrations that where off a knot or two.

Those boats are fast, but a 40 knot cruise does not necessarily make a 50 knot boat. Show me a Bevin's or DD engine start-up sheet with the real deal numbers of a finished ready to go boat. Not a one time down-swell, 200 gallons of fuel, unfinished, no equipment on board never will see that number again run, and years later people saying I think we hit 50 knots. Need to see some documentation, just saying, otherwise send it to Mythbusters.....

As a brief addition to this list of fast SF's, in the late 1970's, Elliott out West took a Cary/Cigarette 50' hull maybe stretched to 55' and built a SF with highly modified 8V-92's by Peter Rothchild's engine company called TCX and I believe they hit the 50 - 55 mph barrier. Bright yellow hull with blue trim, called "Lemon Peel". Beautiful boat that eventual burnt to the waterline near Newport Beach, CA.

In those days Loran-C was the best available nav instrument so I doubt there are any GPS screen captures to prove the speeds. I heard of some time trials done on measured courses but of course those were in full race "trim".

As a custom builder, to my knowledge that 50 knot barrier has yet to be broken by a completed, fully equipped (but not necessarily fully loaded) hull with stock engines. 40 knot cruise is also often slightly exaggerated, depending on what kind of rev's you call cruise. I know of only two "big" (to us little guys K1W1 and Marmot!) SF boats in the 60-70' range that can make those speeds at anything less than 2000 rpm's and neither of those will top 50 unless stripped down with a different set of wheels. Those two are as far as I know the current two fastest big SF on the east coast (and I built one of them!).

Sorry for the continuing derail, back to Bertram?

Just to be sure Capt J I meant no disrespect whatsoever to any of the builders! Jim was certainly one of the pioneers and I was fortunate to have both known him and listened when he gave me advice about boatbuilding long ago. Rich (Scheffer) is also a good friend and I have crawled through the bilges of all the Speed Merchants while they were being built, raced them a time or two and even did some maintenance for Mitch on the Mayaca when he couldn't get outboard of those 183's down in Chub one winter. I was a lot smaller and more flexible then!

There are still some of us smaller guys out here trying to push the envelope still and the big boys are paying attention too. Granted the changes are almost infinitesimal compared to the old days but even some of us Carolina rednecks are splining shafts, bagging laminates and coring countertops now!

DEMAND.

Simply answer. Speed was and is a niche market. Searay, Cruisers, and Formula are not niche marketers. The amount of business Fountain does is immaterial to them. The SF market is the Viking, Hatteras, Cabo, etc. market. Jim Smith has a very small target group. A 38' Fountain CC runs 75 mph. But how many times has Fountain either gone out of business, filed bankruptcy or been sold in a distressed sale?

There simply isn't any mass demand for the faster speeds. We have a 50+ knot boat on the lake, but we settled and are happy with 40 knots on the coast. Well, we do actually have a tender that runs 46 knots or so, but we don't run it often at that speed.

Actually the last Speed Merchant Rich built did have a stepped hull and it worked as advertised by the NA he hired. Way before splashing I asked him if he was worried and he slyly smiled and said his "normal" bottom was underneath the Divinycell steps and if it was a disaster he would just grind them off. That's planning ahead for contingencies!

Oh, and I've got a design for a big SF with a centerline turbine/steerable jet combo with auxiliary wing engines using retractable surface drive units for trolling/maneuvering that will work and definitely push the envelope! I've even solved all those pesky "issues" with intake air that caused so many problems with previous attempts at turbine power for SF's. Maybe someday...

And they cost considerably more. Oh people care about fuel burn but they care more about price. And many lack the patience to wait for custom.

Well, our exchange was about the 50 knot myth and you have not said anything that changes my mind, there is no proof that they were a true 50 knot boats, no knock on them for their efforts. The myth lives on.


There is a certain amount of physics that your comments tend to by-pass, and if they could do it back then on a pair of 800 hp engines why aren't they (custom SF) guys doing it now?

There is more technical hydrodynamic analysis done today that pushes the edge than those guys had access to. They built them light and "just" strong enough, or sometimes NOT strong enough and they could NOT maintain the speeds in any sort of sea state without structural issues. Impacts/ accelerations/ g-loads were just not as well understood. One of the few to reach out to the low hp/low weight idea was Revenge Yachts as you mentioned, with a carbon fiber hull and they only built 3 and did not break 50 knots. I believe the founder recently passed, God bless him.

It reminds me of the lessons we learned from the US Navy after WW2, the US Destroyers could outrun the Russians in smooth water, then the sea state would increase and all the US Admirals could do was to watch the Russian Navy pull away when the going got rough. Never again they said, smooth water top speed was shelved for better sea keeping , and they gained back supremacy with the new class of Destroyers.

I love that boat building era as much as you do, but do not overly romanticize the era. A late 60's Mustang Shelby GT 500 is a sweet ride, but can not handle the heat from a new version. Look at old Corvette's versus todays', no contest!

A splined propeller shaft is pretty basic stuff from a machinist's background, Monel is pretty low tech compared to AQ 22 HS, and the new wake-adapted struts and rudders are light years ahead of that old stuff. Coring of countertops has been alive and well since at least 1990. There is a reason why gear ratios that are 1.2 - 1.5 and the associated decrease in shaft diameters are not used, and today you see the ratios going from 1.75 up to 3.5, or even more from Hatteras, with the shaft diameters having to increase as well. The physics behind propeller design can not handle the 50 knot magic marker at gear ratios of 1.5 and below, cavitation and erosion occur with dramatic drops in propeller efficiency at WOT.

I will say this - the high speed custom SF market (not to be confused by the Offshore Performance boat markets) has not kept pace with the technology advance that the sail industry has achieved. Those Volvo 60/70 footers planing at 30+ knots are mind blowing, to say the least.

I have no 35 year old axe to grind J, nice dance but you are bouncing back and forth between Production and Custom to make your own case that is not backed by fact.

The 60/63 Hatteras GT can do many of the things you say the production boats can't and I have ridden them and talked with their captains. Today's custom Sf are state of the art and owe their lineage to what we are talking about, but are more versatile with the increase in outfitting and the need to travel to more locations.

Give it a rest, you are beating your own dead horse.

Demand is relative. I don't call one or two boats a year as most custom builders are doing "demand." They are a small niche market. In demand based on their small market. As to re-sale, of course it is greater, as the price new was significantly greater too.

There are buyers for the custom SF. But add them all together and it's still a limited market. And specifically as we were talking about high speed, that demand remains limited for SF and for high performance boats of other types. There remain a few high performance boat builders but every year has one closing, one reorganizing, one being sold and ultimately there are just a few boats sold in that market each year.

Look, I will be the first to admit that I am very data driven, somewhat of a skeptic as an engineer, and still consider the 50 knot mark rarely if ever touched by the custom SF world. And the 50 knot myth has been supported by other more experienced posters on this thread. Your comments have taken us through the obstacle course of production and custom SF in a round about way, it feels like we started out at the Waffle House, went to Red Lobster for lunch, maybe visited Shula's Steakhouse for dinner and are back at Denny's.

Look at the boat test of the Hatteras 60GT:

http://www.******************.com/boat-tests/hatteras-60gt-convertible?tab=test

With Tower, 34 - 40 mph winds, 4 - 6 seas, and it burned 98 gph at 32 knots (1750 rpm) and can cruise up to 35 knots at about 1900 rpm and 112 gph. Quite a different story than you numbers, even though you have RUN them, but very close to the numbers I have seen when I have RIDDEN on them.

A 71' Smith, "Houdini" repowered with C32 CAT's in 2014 burns 90 gph at 30 knots, 40 knot top end with up to date power, advertised "In The Bite" magazine, not too different from the Hatteras 60 GT. These are numbers I can verify in print, so I tend to give them some credence over hearsay.

The Cat Cay tuna (glory) days? Mainly 35/37/43/46 footers? Some gassers thrown in there as well? Does not even begin to change the 50 knot SF myth one bit.

It is a real technical design and construction challenge, not to mention the commitment from an owner and his resale position, and I would not be so quick to add any member to that club without any hard evidence. Otherwise it falls under "Lore". There is always a data sheet out there, be it from the builder/designer/engine distributor/engine maker/broker/boat test in a magazine or even a reference in a magazine article going back to the much missed Tournament Digest days, but I have not found it yet.

Even Renegade, the 80' Monterey, with 396 MTU's rated 3640 hp each and a with Radar gun could not break 49 knots, and the best reference I have seen in print for a Jim Smith was 55.7 mph still under 49 knots. Show me the money, show me the MONEY