Continued from Bertram Sinking; Foul Weather Discussion

CTdave · Jan 12, 2010

Where the heck is the spell check button???

SCALAWAG · Jan 12, 2010

Shazam That looks like a 65 that left Fort Myers Beach I know the boat if it is the same one. Bad week end to leave.

BUIZILLA · Jan 12, 2010

Bamboo said:

I don't know what you are driving, but that's Donzi weather....
Click to expand...

I seem to recall 65' D**** hull #1 having an equal or better story when it came back trying to beat a hurricane.. now, THAT boat is a bricksh1thouse...

Bluefin · Jan 12, 2010

SHAZAM! said:

Not the case here at all. I've actually held off posting the worst pictures in hopes that somehow bertram will step up to the plate and make things right. I haven't really caught up with what was going on with whats going on in this thread because I've been busy, but I did spend the entire weekend thinking about this story.

Here's my problem and keep in mind, I'm not here to plug myself or whatever boat it is that I own. This weekend I had to move my personal 65' Sportfisherman (brand intentionally omitted) from the islands to miami, me, my mechanic and a friend who had made the trip several times untied friday evening and were hoping to get home before the cold front hit south florida. As luck would have it, we got caught in the cold front and spent around 12 hours running in 14'+ (and I mean +++) seas, temp somewhere in the low 30's and what must have been somewhere in the 20's with wind chill. Wind howling at what seemed to be 50 mph+ and rain that was sideways the whole trip. Visibility no further than the bow of the boat. By the time we got caught in this mess it was already too late to turn around, so we had to keep going. Here's a sampling of what we were going through, mind you I was able to take this video because things had calmed down enough where I was able to actually pull the phone out and record what was going on...

Forget the brand of the boat as I'm not here to plug another boat company but lets take a look at the damage the boat sustained after our ordeal was over:

1- STBD outrigger snapped in half.
2- VHF antennas snapped in half or gone all together.
3- Davit cable snapped causing davit to swing from side to side and slamming into house.
4- Radar scanner ripped off of hard top.
5- Transom door latch ripped off.
6- Port side aft spray rail ripped off of hull.
7- every door and drawer inside boat broke their locks and spewed out whatever was behind them.

etc, etc.

The ride was so bad that I had to tie myself to the helm chair while my crew laid down in the ER bilge so they wouldn't get thrown around (both were injured) and so that they could keep warm. This was quite possibly the stupidest thing I have ever done, in retrospect I can't figure out why I put my friends and myself in harms way like this. I know there are those of you out there who have been out in worse weather, but for me this is the worst I had ever seen and the longest I had ever been exposed to this kind of beating. I doubted many things during this trip, I doubted whether or not the tower would stay together (we had several instances where waves washed over the tower), I doubted whether the generators would keep running, I prayed that the motors would keep running and that the fuel didn't have any water in it, etc. With all that was going through my mind, the one thing that I didn't even think about was whether or not the boat was going to stay together in one piece. Why? Because the company that built this boat was famous for building BRICK FCUKING $HITHOUSES! Sure the boat may not have the nicest woodwork, the nicest lines or the fastest speeds, but where it matters (construction) I knew the boat was overbuilt and that's what gave me the confidence to keep pushing forward.

What does this have to do with Bertram or the 630? What if I was a ferretti bertram owner that doesn't keep tabs on whats going on with the company or who hasn't heard the dock talk about the recent 630 issues and had owned other Bertrams (like I have) and only thought of his boat as the offshore battlewagon that was built like the afore mentioned BRICK $HITHOUSE? Based on my experiences with my older Bertrams (60', 54', etc) why would I think twice about taking my boat out in this weather? Now imagine if unbeknownst to said owner that his boat was the "Certifiable" or "Absolute"? How would that trip offshore have ended? If a plastic buoy ended "absolute's" life, what would 12+ hours of the pounding I took have done? It's for this reason that I find Ferretti/Bertram's behavior UNCONSCIONABLE! As soon as there was any doubt regarding the lamination, core or ANYTHING THAT COULD ENDANGER PEOPLES LIVES the factory should have notified the owners of all recently manufactured bertrams and told them what was going on and asked them not to use the boats until the factory had independent surveyors thoruogly check ALL THE BOATS! I know others may have stated this already, I think its worth repeating.

Everyone makes mistakes, everyone builds a dud once in a while but its how you handle your mistakes that determines who you are as a company. I for one find the way that Ferretti/Bertram has handled this situation totally unacceptable.
Click to expand...

Was that Sig on the Northwestern off of your starboard bow?

CTdave · Jan 12, 2010

Bluefin said:

Was that Sig on the Northwestern off of your starboard bow?
Click to expand...

Nah, they ran back to Dutch to weather the storm........

YachtForums · Jan 12, 2010

Gents,

Let's all make an effort to keep our posts relevant to the thread. This thread should be about about discovery, solutions or answers... not for chat.

I'm splitting off some of these posts because they are off topic, moving them to the General Sportfish Discussion.

alacrity · Jan 12, 2010

i think shazam said he was moving the boat from the islands stateside, islands means bahamas i would imagine.

48 Sportfish · Jan 13, 2010

Windshield gives it away. Shazam was in a Hatteras....

Liam · Jan 15, 2010

48 Sportfish said:

Windshield gives it away. Shazam was in a Hatteras....
Click to expand...

yes luckily for him. And it was a Hargrave Hatteras too...

Log in or Sign up

Continued from Bertram Sinking; Foul Weather Discussion

CTdave Senior Member

SCALAWAG Guest

BUIZILLA New Member

Bluefin New Member

CTdave Senior Member

YachtForums Administrator

alacrity New Member

48 Sportfish New Member

Liam Senior Member