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Bertram31.com General Bulletin Board
Lee Dana's take on Ethanol
Posted By: Doug LeBlanc
Date: Thursday, 18 May 2006, at 11:43 p.m.
Well, I just spent about 45 minutes on the phone with Lee Dana. He was extrodinarily helpful and seemed genuinely interested to speak with me. While he has had many calls regarding the ethanol issue, he said I was the first 33 owner to contact him. I told him I was calling on behalf of all of the gas owners on the 33 forum.
Contrary to what Geney Menedes at Bertram has stated, Lee says that he has seen documents from Bertram showing that all Bertram fuel tanks used the same resins. That's all boats, all years up until the early 2000's when he claims Bertram changed to the vinyl-ester resin. The only major difference that he can see is that the early fuel tanks from the 60's (think 20's, 25's, and 31's) were not gel-coated on the inside and that these tanks will definately fail. He didn't claim that the later gel-coated tanks would be safe, but that in his estimation they would last longer.
He also said that he was working with a couple of different tank manufacturers to come up with replacement tanks that would also be made out of fiberglass. The work is progressing slowly however as there are still questions over which resin will actually be safe for all future ethanol blends (i.e. anything over E10). Things are also moving slowly because while Bertram has given him access to their archives, they are apparently in quite a state of disarray. He is having a hard time finding drawings of all of the tanks. He did say, however, that he had drawings of the 33 tanks (though he did not mention which years he had). His partner, Jerry Solderholm, has been ill and unable to help. I asked Lee if he would mind if I solicited some volunteers from our sites (both the 31 and 33) to help him sort through some of Bertram's archives in Miami and he said that that would be helpful. Any of you south Florida boys interested in having an archiving day at the Bertram offices in Miami? If I could get a cheap enough flight I might be interested in joining.
He also said that he would be interested in getting samples of any failed fuel tanks so they can try and reverse engineer the process. He seems to think that a new fiberglass tank can be produced for less than $5-$7 per gallon, providing that we re-use the metal plates and tubes from the original tanks. Anyone interested in being a guinea pig should get in touch with him.
If I can think of anything else he said, I will add it later.
Regards,
Doug L.
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