The original Bertram 54, which came out in 1984, was arguably
the best convertible Bertram built in its glory days that ended about 20 years ago.
The 10% Luxury Tax rocked the company to its foundations in 1991 and it was sold,
sold again, wandered in the wilderness, and then in 1998 the Ferretti Group finally
bought it. Ferretti began a process of renovation and renewal that reached full
circle with the introduction of the Bertram 540. The Ferretti Group is building
a slightly different kind of Bertram, one more for a sophisticated sportsman, a
man who takes good fishability for granted, but who also wants a luxurious cruising
boat and a classy entertainment venue all rolled up in one marquis brand. Enter
the all new Bertram 540. We think she’s a lot better than the old 54 and we’ll tell you why
--
The folks in Cadillac, Michigan like nothing better than
blowing off the socks of their competition with new ideas and reinventions of old
ones. Their latest why-didn’t-we-think-of-that creation is an all-new pallet of
pastel colors and a dozen new features sprinkled all over the boat. We love the
new pastels on the V358. They work, and draw one’s eye to the other details about
this express cruiser which might otherwise have been missed. The V358 has been around
for a couple of years but if you haven’t seen the changes made for 2009 then you
have missed a treat. This boat is so well executed we think it can become a classic.
We were blown
away the new model as we think you will be too when you see the pictures --
More and more these days boaters are looking for boats
that can be versatile, either cruise or fish, and be darned good at both. The Rampage
34 fits the bill. Below she is open and comfortable for dinner, drinks and hanging
out; but when it’s time to turn in, she’ll sleep six family, friends, or fishing
buddies. The boat comes with gas, diesel, or IPS, take your pick. Mom and the kids
will like the joystick docking. When you have a
truly big fish on, you need to keep the stern of the boat facing the action and
keep the angler fighting astern rather than over a stern quarter, or worse, to the
side. The boat should be as agile as a ballet dancer at the Met, and with the IPS
the helmsman can turn, spin, back down, gun her forward and do whatever it takes
to keep the line taught, the rod bent, and the fish in on the defensive. Capt. Rob Smith takes an in-depth look at the Rampage 34 --
With a top speed of 41.4 mph the 520 Sports Coupe from
Cruisers Yachts is virtually the fastest yacht on the market with triple 435-hp
IPS diesels. And at her best cruise speed of 22.5 mph those three mills are just
loping along, burning only 28.7 gph, again pretty much best in class, giving her
a 335-mile range. But there is a lot more to the 520 than performance. Her styling,
room, layout, fit-n-finish, her beefy construction, and her full standing head
room in the aft master, make her nothing short of compelling. For most people a 52' boat is all that they will ever need in life. This boat can cruise virtually
anywhere in the civilized world and do it in comfort with reliable systems and a
joystick to boot.
To see what we’re talking about check out our complete test with performance numbers,
video and Captain’s Report --
Capt. Steve spent the better part of a day testing and
carefully going over every inch of the Meridian 580 before he made the videos presented
here. After the speed trials were done he and the president of BoatTEST got into
a lively debate as to what is the “best cruise” speed for this 60,000 lb. vessel.
Capt. Steve maintained that a displacement speed of 8.6 knots was better than most
“expedition” yachts make so that should qualify and it gives the boat a 766 nautical
mile range on 90% fuel capacity. Our company’s president maintained that Meridian
owners wouldn’t use the boat that way and would more likely cruise the boat at 20.1
knots, giving her a 324 nm range. We’d like to know which way our readers would
use the boat so we can report the “best cruise” speed accordingly. Please email
your answer to: editorial@boattest.com.
Doral built the Intrigue
with a “cabin forward” design that maximizes the interior volume of this 30’ boat
like nothing else we have seen. Below, she has two cabins plus what amounts to a
sleeping “loft” up forward, separated from the salon by a privacy curtain. Her mid-cabin
even has a seat. Like all Dorals her exterior styling and execution of details places
her firmly in the ranks of the world’s top boat builders. She has a comfortable
cockpit for both cruising and entertaining. You need to take a tour of this boat
to fully appreciate what the creative designers at Doral have done. This year, Doral
added several new engine combinations bringing the choices to sixteen packages from
Yanmar, Cummins-MerCruiser, Volvo Penta and MerCruiser. We tested with the new Axius
system from MerCruiser. Find out how the Doral Intrigue performed.
This video "mini-series" of the Nordhavn TA rally was so
popular last year when we ran it, we thought you'd enjoy seeing it again.
Call it a "re-run." The video series gives you the feel of the historic 2004 transatlantic
power crossing. 18 power owners call it – “A Piece of Cake.”
Hargrave News
Used Hargrave Motoryachts
Take Big Price Reductions
Hargrave Custom Yachts not only builds new, large motoryachts,
it also specializes in brokering used Hargrave motoryachts. Because the folks at
Hargrave are intimately involved with every detail of the boats they build, it stands
to reason that they would be the “go-to” people when buying a pre-owned Hargrave.
Each of the four boats pictured above have had significant price reductions during
the last 30 days and all are available for delivery in June. The 97’ “Cocktails”
has been reduced $400k; the 108’ Freedom has been reduced $700k; the 68’ “One 2
Sea” has dropped $155k; and, the 78’ “Crab Pot” has taken off $620k.
For more information
and interior pictures --
Sea Ray’s 52 Sedan Bridge started life as a 48 and has
evolved over the last 11 years into a versatile yacht for both local entertaining,
short hops, extended cruising, and can even be used for fishing by putting a few
options aboard. That’s right, you really don’t have to have a $2 million fishing
machine to go offshore fishing! With three staterooms, standard cruising canvas
for the flying bridge, sun pads for the babes, and two venues for al fresco dining,
this 52 can do almost anything within reason. To get our take on the 52 --
Downsizing. We saw it coming last year. Fuel prices spiked
to $5 a gallon and almost immediately powerboat owners began talking about downsizing.
It didn’t make much difference what size boat they owned, they wanted to downsize.
The owner of an 80-footer wants to downsize to a 60-footer; the owner of a 23-footer
wants to trade down to a 20-footer. We asked why, and invariably the answer was
the same: to lower operating expenses. When fuel prices got back to normal we expected
to see the scramble to downsize disappear. But it didn’t. It’s still there among
tens of thousands of boaters. Many would like to downsize to take cash out. We
take a reality check and look at the dollars and sense of downsizing --
Repowering
255-hp
Yanmar-Powered
Carver 36 Mariner as Fast as 375-hp Gas Engines!
Carver has built a “36 Mariner” at two distinct periods during the last 30 years.
From 1984 to ’88 it built the model with two staterooms, then in 2004 the 35 Mariner
morphed into the 36 Mariner and it is still being built to this day. It has one
stateroom. Most of the Mariners no matter from what era they were built left the factory
with twin gas engines. But in 2004 one of those Mariner 36s was powered by a 255-hp
(continuous) 6LPA-STP Yanmar diesel. Amazingly, its top end was within 3/10ths
of a mph of what we recorded in a sistership two years later powered by twin 375
Crusader 6.0 L HO MPI gas engines. This presents some interesting possibilities
for someone looking for diesel power in an affordable 36’ boat. See what we mean --
Last Friday the folks at Brunswick announced a “Payment Protection Plan” for three
of the company's brands: Bayliner, Maxum, and Trophy. The program will be extended
to qualified consumers taking delivery by July 6, 2009 – just over a month away.
In a statement issued on Friday the company said that the marketing plan is intended
to help boat sales during this year’s peak boat selling season which ends with
the July 4th weekend. Division President Andy Graves said, “People are understandably
anxious in this economy. Payment protection can help allay some of those fears,
and help more of our customers experience the joy of boating this summer.” To read full details about the plan --
In case you haven’t noticed, virtually all of the print boating magazines have become
little more than pamphlets this year, some running as few as 30 editorial pages
a month. The reason, of course, has been the precipitous fall in marine advertising
this year due to the near catastrophic economic conditions that have hit the boating
industry. The ad pages in these magazines pay for the edit pages, and with ad pages
disappearing, so must the edit pages. Happily, BoatTEST.com has not missed a beat
this year and continues to average over 180 editorial pages each month, combined,
in it its four weekly newsletters. For example, during the last four weeks, BoatTEST.com
published an astounding 68 articles and 76 videos spanning the size range from 16-footers
to megayachts, giving buying information, 3rd party boat and engine tests, as well
as boat handling, maintenance and seamanship tutorials. Why not send BoatTEST’s
weekly newsletters to all of your boating friends? They’ll thank you for it. Sign up here --
When the team at Shurhold told us that their Pro Polish was “Better than an old
fashioned wax” and one of the reasons was that it was a “polymer based formula with
cosmetic grade ingredients”, we just had to send it to our skunk works for testing.
The
results: when applying you could see swirl marks and
water spots disappear, and when buffed off, the resulting finish looked just as
advertised, a nice deep luster with a showroom shine. But that was not enough, so
after a week of use and four washings, with only drying the surface, we took a picture. We’d say this passed the test.
The team at BoatTEST has spent the last few weeks searching for new and non-current
boats which are exceedingly good values and are available at prices that you will
not find anywhere else. BoatTEST has reviewed several McKinna models in the
past and has found that
they have very fine fit and finish and exceptional joinerwork. If the yacht
above fits your needs and you have
decided to buy in this class of yacht, then simply click on the image to see complete
details and get the special price. See full details on this yacht –
Last Saturday seven people were out on Lake Ontario fishing on their 31-foot cabin
cruiser when the owner noticed that his bilge was filling with water. What to do?
What would you do? The engines were running, so could it have been
a faulty water intake hose? The skipper shut off the cooling water seacocks. Still the water
came in. The boat began listing to one side and was clearly going down fast. The
waters were frigid (40-degrees F) and all seven people would have only a few minutes
in the water before hypothermia would set in. To find out what happened next --
As we read the “Rescue of the Week” story which appears to the left, we could not
help but think of a story told recently by Kiko Villalon, Pres. of Ancon Marine
Consultants and a veteran of the U.S. marine industry. Kiko often does investigative
work for the USCG, looking into why deadly accidents occur and the results of his
work has appeared on these pages in the past. Every spring there are a rash of accidents
– sinkings and explosions, for example – that occur in older boats usually because
of a lack of maintenance and owner “boat diligence.” Kiko’s “maintenance genie”
could help avoid many of these accidents and we highly recommend the genie to you.
Open the box here --
The recreational marine recession which started in 2005 in 15’ aluminum boats in
the American Midwest has now – 4 years later – not only rolled around the world,
it has also climbed right up the boat size ladder to superyachts and hit the super
rich. Last week Royal Denship, one of the largest megayacht-building yards in northern
Europe, declared bankruptcy. This is the first major megayacht yard that has been
brought to its knees by the world-wide recession. As recently as last summer, most
superyacht yards had full order books going out at least three years. To find out what is going on among the rich and famous --
BoatTEST.com has just received a Top Secret video taken from the bridge of the USS
Kitty Hawk in an undisclosed location. We’re told that this is a Navy test to make
sure that its multi-million dollar helicopters can withstand repeated baths of tons
of saltwater and keep on ticking. The ship’s flight deck is 88’ off the water. The
Kitty Hawk is 1046’ LOA, with a beam of 129’ and a draft of 35’, displacing 82,000
tons. FYI – that’s a $32 million F/A 18 “All- Weather” (no kidding) fighter parked
in front of the island. We assume the hanger below was full. If you would like to
see how the Kitty Hawk and the Seahawk handle high seas, take a look at this video
--
This week we continue with Tony Fleming’s “world’s longest shakedown cruise” and
visit the Sea of Cortez. Also called the Gulf of California, this body of water
is about 800 miles long and is 75 to about 150 miles wide. It teams with several
species of whale and dolphin, sea lions, and all manner of bird life. Game fishing
is still good in the summer time and a large charter fleet is based at Cabo San
Lucas at the very tip of Baja California. Everyone should see the Sea of Cortez
at least once in their life. Let’s join Tony Fleming --
The Oregon Coast has some of the most treacherous river bar crossings in the country,
but U.S. Coast Guard rules don't require charter boat passengers -- or recreational
boat passengers -- to wear life jackets when braving those waters. At the suggestion
of the USCG, the federal government is considering rules to require people on the
decks of recreational and uninspected boats off the coast of Oregon and Washington
to wear life jackets when crossing a restricted bar. (Bars can be restricted but
not closed in severe weather.) We think that is a very good idea, and, further,
we urge our readers to wear life jackets when entering any inlet when conditions
are foul. Find out more and see pictures --
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index™, which had improved considerably
in April, posted another large gain in May. The Index now stands at 54.9 (1985=100),
up from 40.8 in April. The Present Situation Index increased to 28.9 from 25.5 last
month. The Expectations Index rose to 72.3 from 51.0 in April. The Consumer Confidence
Survey™ is based on a representative sample of 5,000 U.S. households. The Index
is now at its highest level since September, 2008 when the collapse of Lehman Bros.
nearly caused a world economic meltdown. Confidence is stronger in some parts of
the country than others. To get a regional breakdown and get the rest of the conference board’s
full report --
Phil Bolger was not the most famous of marine naval architects, but in many ways
he was the most practical. He was known for off-beat designs, mostly sail, but of
his 668 design, many were power boats, too. He was a master of simple design using
1/2” plywood and sold plans to a generation of Americans in the 1950s who built
boats in their basements and back yards and made the dream of boating possible for
thousands of people getting back on their feet after the Depression and WW II.
For more about Phil Bolger and his body of work --
This week Capt. Steve
goes over six new lessons and guidelines on docking your twin inboard boat. Watch
demonstrations with Capt. Steve approaching the dock, backing into a slip, and maneuvering
the boat through close quarters. You’ll learn how to pivot your twin inboard, and
how to “walk the boat” or move sideways without bow thrusters. The videos presented
this week are part of Capt. Steve’s USCG-approved boating course called “Smart Boating.”
Watch Capt. Steve's video boating lessons every week on BoatTEST.com.
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