FEBRUARY/MARCH 2018 21Composites Consulting Group (DeSoto,
Texas) check it.
The layup begins with gelcoat,
SprayCore print blocker, a 2-oz (600-g/
m^2 ) skincoat of chop, followed by a
layer of hand-laid 1708 or 1808 biaxial
fiberglass fabric. Then the entire
part—hull or deck—is
infused all at one time
with vinylester resin.
Blanding returned
to double-check the
routing and setup, and
be on hand for the
shoot.Bertrams are to be tough o shore
boats, and Peters’s extensive experi-
ence working with the U.S. Navy
ensures that the boats are well built.
Blackwell and his crew reviewed the
schedule and also had composites
process consultant Belle Blanding ofhelm has eight separate molds. e
ybridge has ve. ere’s a lot of detail
work, but it comes out looking beauti-
ful. e molds are very high quality.”
Michael Peters’s team did the struc-
tural engineering, including specify-
ing the lamination schedule. e newJ
ust as the mortal owners of historic buildings and par-
cels of land realize they are but temporary stewards
with a responsibility to others present and future, when
Ben Gavio set about guiding Bertram into the future, he
must have felt some similar duty. A er all, he was not the
rst to accept the challenge and responsibility, as eight
owners over six decades had taken turns at preserving
Bertram’s legacy, not the least of which were the fellow
Italian Ferretti brothers. Selecting the designer was critical.
Michael Peters, who eventually won the job, said he
was in competition with four or ve other design rms,
and he wanted it badly.
“I have a personal attachment to Bertram that goes back
to my childhood,” he said in a telephone interview. “It’s the
one account I always wanted and the one I never got. So
the chance to create Bertram again was huge. You know
they destroyed all the old molds. We can’t pull the old 70
[21m] out of the back acreage. It’s all gone. e only thing
for Bertram is the new stu . So to nally get it under those
terms, I didn’t want to screw it up. Of all the work I’ve done
over the years,” he emphasized, “this is the one.”
ere are thousands of Bertrams, of every era, still in
operation. Many models like the rst 31 are considered
classics and are highly coveted. Expectations of the Ber-
tram following could be daunting, and Peters knew full
well that his work would be scrutinized and that it wouldbe unlikely to please everyone.
“Anytime you volunteer to redo something that is clas-
sic or iconic,” he said, “you are taking a really big chance
of doing it wrong. Somebody is going to criticize you and
say, ‘You didn’t do this right,’ or ‘You didn’t do that right.’”
But Peters was ready for it. Not only was he a life-long
admirer of Bertrams, he owns a 20 and 25 (6m and
7.6m), both of which he has painstakingly restored.
Early on it was decided that the new models would not
be put into series production but would be semi-custom,
based on the same hull and deck. As Bertram CEO Peter
Truslow said in the main text, the numbers are no longer
there for a production line. So costs must be amortized
over a fewer number of units, hence more expensive boats
with choices that accommodate owner desires and drive
up the sales price.
e decision was made to make sure there is a connec-
tion between the new models and what people perceive
to be the original Bertram look. And what better model to
select than the rst production model, the Bertram 31?
But it was a small boat that wasn’t deemed viable in
today’s market.
“ e 35 [10.7m] has a nice but limited audience,” Peters
said. “ e 50 [15.2m, on the drawing boards] and 60
[18.3m] are not throwback boats; they’re modern boats
taking on the market competition head-to-head—notMichael Peters Creates the New Bertram
A worker checks the
tape and seal of the
infusion bag. Before the
shoot, laminator Brent
Brown likes to hold
vacuum for six hours to
be certain all air is out
of the materials.Bertram171-ADFinal.indd 21 12/29/17 4:42 PM