bertram31.com

Craig G

The emblems from High Tide are very nice, and pricey, but be prepared to fill some of the previous holes and drill some new ones. Evidently Bertram used different vendors over the years, so the holes may not match up. That is what High Tide told me when I called them several years ago about the hole...

Craig G

I actually have bragging rights of going 105 mph in a boat. It was a 47 Apache called Apache Heritage. If you google Apache Heritage boat, you can find more information about that boat. It was the champion boat in Key West in 1992 and 1993 I believe. A good friend of mine, Patrick Mercurio was a bac...

Craig G

Just curious on about the source of battery power for bilge pumps. Obviously when operating through the float switch, this power should come from the hot battery bus as I made for each battery in my 31 Bahia Mar, or the hot pole on the battery switch with each battery powering a separate bilge pump....

Craig G

It would be nice to see them build the boats for the less affluent and maybe that would drive the value back up for our Bertrams, but my source tells me they will be larger boats built in their shipyards in Italy. Time will tell. Stay tuned, now to your regularly scheduled programming.

Craig G

A friend of mine who has sold a couple Bagliettos and the only Cerri in the US knows the owner. He paid about 8 million for just the name and will probably build Bertram boats in Italy, but unfortunately nothing we would recognize as a Bertram since no molds or tooling were included in the deal.

Craig G

Not sure why the one picture cropped wrong. All connections are crimped, soldered, sealed with silicone and then shrink wrapped. The name Hot Battery Bus comes from my aviation background. My next wiring project if I am up for the challenge will be to clean up this bird's nest of wires behind my ins...

Craig G

Here are the after photos. http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/a493/Craig727/imagejpg4_zps891f5d47.jpg http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/a493/Craig727/imagejpg1_zpsafb3bc7c.jpg http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/a493/Craig727/imagejpg2_zps2a29c1cc.jpg It was a lot of work, but I have been meaning...

Craig G

Not sure if this will work, but here is a before picture of my batteries with 47 years of people hot wiring things directly to the batteries. I am guilty of constantly repairing the broken wires/fuse holders as they are prone to breaking from corrosion. I decided to tackle this job instead of replac...

Craig G

Charlie, that is what I was thinking, however I might as well use the solenoid switch for the tie since it is wired to a toggle switch on the instrument panel and appears to work. I can do this by buying one ON/OFF switch, taking the ON/OFF switch from my 17 Cape Horn and swapping it with one of the...

Craig G

I'm not sure why half of the picture got cut off, but you can see one of the switches along with the solenoid tie switch. Also, there is a resettable circuit breaker on one switch as seen in the picture. Any thoughts on that?

Craig G

I think you are right about that. Maybe I can just figure out how to properly position the switches for use instead of re-wiring them, or just get ON/OFF switches and wire it up as shown with the tie switch.

Craig G

I think I see the issue with my battery switches. I have the two battery switches, but they are not the simple on/off switches. They are off/all/1/2. I've always just operated them in ALL position as operating one on 1 and the other on 2 doesn't work. While experimenting with it tonight, I can put o...

Craig G

Fat thumb, Battery Switches, should be the name of topic.

Craig G

I have two batteries and two battery switches in my 31 Bahia Mar that does not have a generator. Does anyone else have this type of set up? I'm doing some re-wiring and was thinking of simplifying it with one battery switch and using the switch that I will remove from the Bertram and use it on my 17...

Craig G

I have a Bahia Mar with Merc 454EFI MPs. It had 3 blade 18 x 20s on it when I got it but would only turn up about 3800 WOT. The boat accelerated very quickly, so I didn't rush to change anything. Recently, I brought the props to Frank and Jimmies in Fort Lauderdale and based on all the information I...

Craig G

Good luck with the knee surgery. My knees started going after I got my 31 Bertram. I think partly because my knees would pound on the deck every time I got on board. Maybe another factor is that I am getting older, but since I got my Bahia Mar, I have had an ACL replacement and have Miniscus damage ...

Craig G

I have the unique distinction of crashing the same airplane twice, and walking away both times! It was a home built plane I started building from scratch just working off a set of plans at the age of 15. Six years later, two days before my 22nd birthday, I flew it for the first time. It had a VW eng...

Craig G

Thanks everyone for all of your suggestions. I went to two local boat places right by my house today and stumbled into the exact boat I was hoping to find and it only has 200 hours on it. It is an unsinkable 2003 17' Cape Horn with a Mercury 150 HP Optimax. Probably not my engine of choice, but low ...

Craig G

Carl, my boat went to Italy sometime early in its life and eventually became in need of a restoration. The previous owner was a Carnival Cruise executive based in Italy and purchased the boat and brought it to Senage Boat works in 1995 for some restoration work. That is when the stainless tower, har...

Craig G

Thanks everyone for the info, keep it coming. My kids are 16 and 20.

Craig G

Thanks. I wish the tower was about another foot shorter. It is 12 feet above the waterline and I live behind the US1 bridge in Pompano requiring me to do my boating around the tides or use my friend's dock on the other side of the bridge. That is a stainless steel Marlin tower that was installed in ...

Craig G

I am looking to purchase a small boat that my kids can use that I will keep in the water behind my Bertram and that I can trailer down to the Keys for weekend trips. I'm looking for very simple, with an outboard engine that will require little maintenance and up keep......I got that block checked of...

Craig G

Wow, that is a beauty alright. We'll done!

Craig G

How is that, Carl.....better?

Craig G

It is the Bokampers just north of Oakland Park Blvd. bridge on the east side of intracoastal water way. I think it is the only one on the ICW. I did not catch what water taxi she works for, there might only be one in the area. As far as the accolades go, I'm already accustomed to that for ten years ...

Craig G

I see it when I use my IPad, but not my phone. I thought you were joking until I checked on my phone. Let me try this again, since I moved the picture into an album in photobucket, it might have gotten deleted. http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/a493/Craig727/Bertram/9beb87d2ec693ff2a439499c2e74967...

Craig G

My first successful picture posting on this site. A milestone for me!

Craig G

I was at Bokamper's Sports Bar and restaurant two nights ago, and a female water taxi captain came up to my table and asked if I owned the 31 Bahia Mar. I proudly responded yes, and she introduced herself as Caroline Bertram and told me that Richard Bertram was her father. She was in a hurry, but po...

Craig G

Does anybody know if those units will work with EFI gas engines. I just bought a Rinda Technologies computer scan unit for my Mercruiser 7.4 EFIMPs with the first generation ECM. I was surprised to be able to read fuel flow among many other things when I plugged it in to my engine's computer. Sure w...

Craig G

This copy and pasted from my pilot's union. Someday, All Planes Will Be Drones" Columnist Holman Jenkins of The Wall Street Journal wrote an op ed that appeared in the newspaper's March 25 edition entitled "Someday, All Planes Will Be Drones." Mr. Jenkins expressed the view that "cargo planes will b...

Craig G

I just put my boat back in the water after much work including new shafts and re pitching my 18 x 20 props to 18 x 18. It is perfect now, full of fuel and 2 people on my 454 EFIMP powered Bahia Mar, WOT was 4400 rpm and 31 knots. Cruising at 20 knots was about 2700 rpm. WOT with the same props at 18...

Craig G

I finished the work on my boat. The shafts that I removed were 79 inches long plus another 11 and a half inches for the jack shafts as Frank and Jimmy's prop shop calls them. That would mean if I didn't reuse the jack shafts, I would need shafts about 90 inches long for my Merc 454 with B/W transmis...

Craig G

Hi Steve, I have had 2 good experiences with Daddy O's buying used distributers from them. They were very nice, and very fair on their prices for used parts. They showed me around the shop and they showed me a couple of their engines. They like to build them with carbs and after market electronic ig...

Craig G

He can pull a lot more Gs in the 777 at FedEx though. Gs as in thousands of dollars. :)

Craig G

They have worked well for 19 years, so I think I'm going to keep them which is the easiest and most cost effective way to replace my shafts. I'm just wondering though, without these extensions, access to the shaft coupling would be very limited on my Bahia Mar with 454s and B/W gears. What kind of a...

Craig G

Jimmy, you broke the code!

Craig G

I'm not actually adding anything. These extensions have probably been there for 19 years when the engines were installed new in Italy. I have owned it for the last 10 of those years. I just ran it in gear at the dock, and both extensions are running true looking at them visually while spinning. The ...

Craig G

I'm thinking maybe having the shafts shortened and keeping the extensions. There is definitely very easy access where the shaft coupling meets the extension coupling unlike where the extension mounts on the transmission coupling. This will aid in alignment. Any other opinions? Should I shorten the s...

Craig G

Thanks Stephan, so what you are saying is that you don't have the extensions on your shafts?

Craig G

I'm getting ready to haul my boat to swap out the shafts among other things. I have a set of shafts ready to go, they have been checked out by a local shop and are good to go....I think? My boat has shaft extensions that are about 11 1/2" long between the transmissions and shafts. Is that standard o...

Craig G

Best flight ever, smoothest landing etc....You will just have to listen to those PAs. We have several Captain Gordon's, but I'm the only one with the first name Craig. I do wear my blue Bertram baseball cap while flying with the sun in my face, but the passengers usually don't see me wearing it.

Craig G

I went with white. That is because I just bought 3 lights at the marine flea market for $80 and that was the only color they had left. The purchase was a bit spontaneous, but the price was right and so was the timing as I am going to haul her out this week for a bottom job. I'll let you know how the...

Craig G

Steve, I fly 757s and 767s for the New American Airlines. Glad to hear progress is being made on your boat while you are away.

Craig G

Thanks as always for all the excellent info. I'm pretty sure my boat does not have a galvanic isolator unless it is hidden somewhere that I have yet to find. That will be on my list of things to do during or shortly after my upcoming haul out as I will be replacing my electrolysis damaged shafts dur...

Craig G

Yes Steve, it was very good. I bought some stuff including underwater transom lights, and several hynautic hydraulic throttle and transmission actuators as replacement spares for my Vetus hydraulics that are no longer supported by Vetus. The weather was perfect too. I flew a quick trip up to JFK Thu...

Craig G

Just a heads up for you south Florida Bertram owners on the site. The marine flea market is tomorrow and Sunday. I will be there tomorrow. If anyone wants to meet up, give me a call tomorrow at 954 857-5527.

Craig G

Thanks Patrick. Is it safe to say, based on your response that you recommend that I get a GUEST galvanic isolator? Also, do most of them come with a monitoring system, and if not, do you recommend getting one that does, or is the self test feature adequate?

Thanks

Craig G

Does anyone have any experience or recommendations when it comes to buying and installing a galvanic isolator. I am about to swap out my shafts due to electrolysis damage and am hoping to prevent that from happening again. Thanks.

Craig G

If your Mercruisers are about 1995 vintage, you might have a 3 in 1 combination heat exchanger for engine along with oil and transmission cooler installed in the front of the engine. They only did that for about a year. It looked good, but was a bad idea as In obsolete now if you need replacement. I...

Craig G

Yes Bill, we have the engine out procedures too. I've been flying Central and South America for a long time with many terrain critical areas like Quito and Bogota among the mix. Thanks Charlie for your kind words. We are fortunate though to go to work which has also been one of my hobbies. Still lov...

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