The 25 Bertram Problems...

What Problems???

Of course this page will generate some feedback. It's not exactly fair to evaluate any vessel without bringing up the bad stuff. As with all things man made the 25 Bertram has it's share of problems. The boats are, and always have been extremely popular and considered top notch by most. After all these were some of the very first production Sport fishing boats ever built. The general over all quality was excellent even by today's standards.

The reports of these problems come from Bertram 25 owners and are well documented on the various discussion boards.

On to the problems with these boats...

1) The protruded chines have a tendency to crack from stress. There simply is not any re-enforcement in this area and the area is subject to high stress loads. The cockpit sole exerts tremendous pressure on the sides of the hull, as does the cabin, Fly bridge, etc. in the form of downward force onto the chines. If your going to push these boats hard in offshore conditions it's a good idea to re-enforce this area internally.

2) The sides are too low. This translates into an uncomfortable "knee high" combing in the aft cockpit. Worse on the V-drive, twin V8 boats because the internal cockpit sole is actually higher in this model.

3) The cockpit soles are too low in the IO versions. The boats have a bad habit of bringing water back into the aft deck through the deck drains. Many owners plug the deck drains with rubber bilge type plugs...dangerous condition for a boat that fishes the open ocean. There is no way to anticipant a stray wave coming in over the low combings, and once it's in the boat it needs to get out fast! Increasing the engine water damn height is a common modification to these boats.

4) The hard top cabin interior head clearance is far too low. Apparently designed by, and for people under 5ft 7" tall. If your over 6ft, you will never be comfortable in these midget sized cabins....what were they thinking here? They did try to help things out a bit with the recess in the cockpit sole, but not enough. This low top scenario created another design flaw; the entire cockpit does not bail. The recessed area under the hard top drains into the bilge, and therefore any water that finds this recess must also find a bilge pump.

5) The windshield frames crack. Pounding around offshore cracks the aluminum frames in the corners and the windshield frame is the primary support for the hard top. Stick a fly bridge on the boats and the problem only gets worse.

6) The boats run "bow light" in the IO configuration. This causes a pounding effect. Many owners actually resort to adding concrete to the bow section to mitigate this effect. This pounding accentuates the other problems already mentioned, cracked windshield frames, cracked chines, etc. The twin V8 boats appear to offer the best ride because the engine weight is farther forward and this causes the V in the bow to cut the waves vs being lifted by them.

7) Although the fiberglass stringers were and still are extremely innovative...they separate form the hull. This is because Bertram used polyester to bond them in place. We now know that polyester is a piss poor "cold bond" agent. The hulls must have been cured prior to the box glass stringer installation. I must mention the fact that these hulls had glass stringers in the first place may be one of the reasons so many are still around at all!...so maybe this little irritant is not so bad. The stringers in my boat were completely delaminated in the stern, engine bay area, oh well.

8) The sharp entry of the breast hook and the wide beam prohibits these hulls from being "go-fast" candidates for offshore service. They were designed for the power and speed of the day. These boats simply don't have the hull form to run with a modern high performance offshore hull...sorry guys. I would consider these hulls to be great below 35mph. Anything faster and you will subject the hull (and yourself) to more stress than it was designed to handle. This applies to keeping the hull in a speed range it can handle indefinitely...not the occasional burst of speed in calm waters.

9) THE "BIG UGLY"... These boats are an absolute nightmare trying to select the perfect re-power. The problem is that they are very capable open ocean hulls without the "big boat" power option, causing the owners to agonize between 2 bad original factory options. By this I mean the hulls never came from Bertram with diesel inboards.

So what's the big deal? Well, if you want to leave your boat in the marina for the season you don't want out drives. The negatives associated with a stern drive that is left in salt water is very well documented and I'll leave it at that. Now, if you choose the inboard V-drive...good by to all your aft cockpit, and hello to the engine, shaft and packing gland access problems associated with V-drives.

Basically both configurations have the same power problem, no cockpit. Whether you go I/O or V-drive you get no aft deck. So the main problem with these boats....... "in my humble opinion" ......is you are greatly tempted by the space, capacity and sea keeping ability of these hulls and sadly disappointed by the factory power options. I'm sure I'll get hate mail from the purist but it's the truth. The 31 doesn't suffer the same affliction. It came from Bertram with in-line engines and one of the biggest cockpits around. The 31 owners only have one decision to make...which make & model engine, how simple is that. Never do you hear 31 owners debating which drive system, because they don't have to. The system that came in the boat is near perfect for offshore duty, longevity and ease of maintenance.

What to do? Convert them to in-line diesel inboards and get the best of everything, or install a single V-drive diesel set up. Either way...get a diesel with a shaft in the boat. Now go figure out a design that will open up the aft cockpit.

Two small diesels would be the ultimate power train for these hulls. In fact.....

            Personally I think a pair of Cummins 4BTA 155hp diesels would be the best twin engine power train you could install in a 25 Bertram.

These conversions could make these boats BETTER than 31's because you have the option of trailering. Many boats of this size came from various manufactures with in-lines, so I'm constantly amazed at the number of people that proclaim it can't be done? This type conversion is fairly complex and not for the inexperienced shade tree hobbyist. But it can be done. Urban legends abound about 25's that have been converted, but I can't find a documented re-configuration, only a picture here and there....hence this site.

These boats can be re-configured with either twin or single in-line diesels, engines side-by-side or set outboard with a walk space between them as is the 31. A single diesel V-drive with the engine moved forward is nice. See: [James Graham's B25]

The difference today that allows the in-line installation is the newer compact, down angle marine gears and lighter, higher horsepower diesels. Construct a prop pocket and your good to go. This stuff just wasn't around in 1962....but it is today.

An alternative fix for this problem is the outboard motor...as wrong as I think they are with this hull, they solve this problem. But not without creating another problem, you loose your fishing capacity off the stern. This is the sacrifice that you make with practically all modern boats. 90% of the boats built today have the angler somewhere between 6 and 8 feet from free space aft of the engines, so fish off the sides and like it!

Boat on the right is a really nice example of an outboard conversion, although I'm no fan of notched transoms, (has something to do about once being in a boat that sank in the Atlantic because of a notched transom design) The 25 Bertram outboard conversions are currently all the rage. Due to the simplicity and potential performance of these conversions I'm sure we will see more of these great old boats getting the "bolt-on ponies" One of the advantages that I see with the OB conversions is they leave mucho forward hull capacity for fuel, batteries, cabins etc. I believe these boats could easily handle 300+ gallons of fuel located somewhere in the forward end of the cockpit....down side is your gonna need it, unless you shell out the big dollars for a pair of state of the art 4 strokes.

The debates on-line about installing outboards on these hulls seem to go on forever. To me it's like this, your either a Harley man, or your a Kawasaki Ninja bike type guy. The people that want the look, feel and sound of a Harley will more than likely prefer an inboard version of these boats. The guys that like the hi-speed whine and performance of the Ninja bikes...want outboards. I'm a Harley guy. To me the hull lines and design of these boats scream "classic inboard sportfishing muscle".

Here's another shot of a really nice OB conversion performed by Eli, a friend off of the 25 Bertram board. I'm an inboard guy to the very core but there's no denying that this is one nice boat.

Enough about the problems associated with these boats. I have gutted and rebuilt several boats in my life and I'm happy to report that the 25 Bertram's are build better than any of my other project boats.

Basically the shortcomings that you will find with one of these boats is more about when they were built than about the way they were built. At the time of their introduction they were state of the art. Many of the attributes of boats built today come from the original Bertram design.

After all, this is the original deep-V.

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