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Bertram31.com General Bulletin Board
5 Years Ago... *PIC*
Posted By: Capt Patrick McCrary
Date: Wednesday, 24 November 2004, at 6:15 p.m.
Thanksgiving eve 1999...
Just about this time 5 years ago I had finished up the final details of the console bubble and meeting with Puetro Rico's Adrian Mercardo.
It had been several years since I finished working on "Fortuna/Iasgair". Being a long weekend, I leisurely went online to see what kind of fan fare was going on with the Bertram 31...
Aside from the charter boys with B31s & their websites, the brokers sites with B31s for sale, I found something that peaked my attention:
There were several bulletin boards, the old YachtWorld board, BoatTalk, Saltwater Sportsman, and maybe one or two more with ongoing discussions about the B31.
Amoungst the several boards, each had a small group of B31 owners asking each other questions and hazarding answers, some rather tongue in cheek. The guys from one board seemed not to realize that the others on the other boards existed...
Here they were, trying to solve problems and meld common interests, all the while that massive threads and topics for every other kind of tub and bubble boat was engulfing them. Kind of like a few Republicans trying to talk about Dubya at the Democratic Nomination Convention.
Already in the firm grips of semi-retirement, a long weekend ahead, and way too much time my hands, I decide that I will just make these few lost soles there OWN website & bulletin board. No Bubble Boats Invited!!
November 24th '99 also fell on a Wednesday... The first task was to secure a domain name. 15 minutes later that was done. I hi-jacked the old Mechanical Bulletin Board from my USAMARINE.NET domain, reconfigured it & set it in place. I managed to get the domain hosted and aliased before the close of the day.
The 25th, Thanksgiving Day, I spent designing and uploading a basic site around a few images & articles, (the old "Fortuna/Iasgair" page was a central item), and then proceeded to invite those other guys over for a Look-See. [Thursday, November 25, 1999 at 17:17:46 (GMT)]
Several of the core group included Uncle Vic, Carlos Sucre, Adam Godfrey, Joe Amato, Vince Luciani, and a few others.
The first few posters to the bulletin board were kind of like nervous cats in a room full of rocking chairs, but warmed up pretty quickly and began spreading the word to others on the Internet.
By January 1st, the group had grown to over 15 guys.
The first post to the bulletin board was on November 25th and in the five years past, over 60,000 post have been made.
There has been two server companies & one major upgrade to the bulletin board since then. The second server, Internetconnection.net, was just recently upgraded to one of their high capacity servers.
Bertram31.com has grown from a small 200 hits average per month site to one serving over 600,000 hits per month. (Average 605,323 between December 1, 2003 & October 31, 2004.)
For some comparisons, Alexa lists bertram31.com with a #3 Ranking on the Internet, (scale of 1 - 6, 6 being the highest in the Top 100,000 Websites on the Net). Hatteras Yachts has a #1 ranking, Bertram Yachts a #1, Viking Yachts a #3, TheHullTruth.com a #1, & YachtWorld a #4...
And just what has made this rather eclectic little site such a success?
Why you, The Faithful, of course!! Without your participation on the bulletin board, your camaraderie, your devotion, your support, and your dignity, this site would be down there with rubberduckies.com, (Alexa ranked #1 or lower...)
Thank You Again Guys, for making Bertram31.com a Success Story in a short 5 years...
Best regards & Happy Thanksgiving!!
Patrick
Oh, and that Thank You is, of course, extended to all of you "Lurkers" out there!
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Bertram31.com General Bulletin Board is maintained by Patrick McCrary with WebBBS 5.12.