Professional BoatBuilder - February-March 2018

20 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDER

BUILDER PROFILE: Bertram

Concepts’ second facility, also in Sara-

sota; at the Tampa plant the two parts

were joined with assistance from the

Marine Concepts crew. Small molded

parts are numerous—nearly 60 for the

35. “ e old 31 had about four,” Black-
    well said. “ e 35 is a complicated
    boat. All the hatches are lined.  e

the old 5-axis router, acquired with the

former Lazzara Marine Corporation

building, up and running.

 e 35 is a one-piece hull mold on a

rotational one-piece hydraulic  xture

from Hudson’s Welding in nearby

Sarasota.  e 60 is a split mold that

was delivered by road from Marine

And, Peters’s personal boats are a Ber-

tram 20 (6.1m), which he keeps close

by his Sarasota, Florida, o ce, just an

hour’s drive south of Tampa, and a Ber-

tram 25 (7.6m) on Catalina Island,

California. Not only was performance

of the new Bertrams critical but per-

haps even more so was “the look.” It

was imperative that one be able to view

the new models and say con dently,

“ at’s a Bertram.” Yet they had to be

updated for today’s market, and for

current boatbuilding practices.

Blackwell: “ e 35 was meant to be

a replacement version of the 31. Be a

modern larger version with a real

cabin and still have the  shability and

performance and handling of the old

31. We all feel good that Michael did
    that.  e 60 started as a new version of
    the old Bertram 54 [16.5m], one of the
    iconic Bertrams.  e 54 was a break-
    through boat.  e styling of the 60 is
    Bertram but modern.”
    For Peters’s comments on the design
    of the new models, see the sidebar on
    the next page.

Construction

Blackwell has an impressive profes-

sional background: more than 40

years of experience building  berglass

boats at Glastron, Gulfstar, Morgan,

Island Packet, Four Winns, Wellcra ,

Chaparral, and Chris-Cra. During

my visit, the shop floor was his

domain (he has since slipped back

into retirement).

With 12 hulls for the 35 on order

at the time of my visit, and No. 9 in

mold and Nos. 7 and 8 on the  oor in

various stages of completion, I had

an excellent opportunity to observe

nearly the entire build process.  e

 rst 60 was in mold as well, scheduled

to be pulled the following week.

Marine Concepts (Cape Coral,

Florida) made the tooling for the 35

hull and deck, and the 60 hull. Vector-

works Marine (Titusville, Florida)

tooled the 60 deck. Blackwell said the

reasons they divided the work amongst

two suppliers was “workload and cost.”

 e two are splitting small parts, but

that may change as the yard now has

The Bertram 35 has nearly 60 parts. Seen here on the shop  oor, molds for the

saloon headliner, saloon aft bulkhead, and headliner for the head are prepped.

Above—Two crew prep the  ybridge for

installation of the Taylor Made windshield

and windows. Right—The only carbon

 ber in the 35 is incorporated into the

 ybridge supports.

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