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What
can you say, it's another Bertram? Actually, quite a bit,
for this is one of my favorite Bertrams, one of those
boats that, when it first came out, I didn't much care
for it. But over the years has slowly revealed her strengths
as just an all-around great boat. Granted, you got to
like this style boat to begin with, but if you do, there's
a lot to talk about here.
Let's start
with the fact that the 33 heads up an entire series of
similar model Bertrams that begins with the 28, and moves
to several different 30 foot models. What distinguishes
so of these boats is the great design styling that has
held up so well over the years. Regardless of age, they
still look good, proving the point that good design really
does account for something.
Despite
its rather low profile, this 33 is a big boat. It has
a 12'8" beam and the gas model weighs in at 20,730
lbs., so she's no lightweight. With a pair of 454 Crusaders,
her deep vee and weight is a bit much for a pair of gas
engines, resulting in a cruise speed of only 21-22 knots,
a bit slow for this size boat. If there are any major
negatives to this boat, that's it. On the other hand,
this is a superb candidate for repowering with diesels
as the engine spaces are large and the job fairly easy.
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| This
twenty year old beauty just received a new pair
of Cat 3208's along with generous cash in-fusion
to make her look like new. |
For a thirty-three
footer, she boasts something you'll rarely ever find with
this size boat: a large cockpit, generous cabin spaces,
and a large flybridge capable of seating five comfortably
with no crowding. Having so much room in all three areas
is achieved as a result of having the rather lengthy house
set far forward which gives you a short foredeck, but
a lot of space on the bridge without taking up cockpit
area.
The cabin
area isn't going to please any socialite as there is no
room for entertaining. But there's more than enough room
for two people overnighting with an adequately sized vee
berth cabin forward. The main cabin has enough room to
allow two people to move around freely, and contains a
good sized galley and convertible dinette which converts
into a nice double berth. Altogether, it's not hard to
see a couple spending a week or so onboard for a vacation
cruise or extended fishing trip. Yet another thing I like
about the cabin is that, though the windows are not large,
they extend completely around the perimeter of the cabin,
mostly at eye level, making for a very bright and airy
interior with fantastic visibility. I don't know about
you, but I like to see what's going on outside when I'm
not at the helm.
The L-shaped
galley has the standard large Norcold under counter reefer,
a medium sized sink and the usual Homestrand combination
alcohol/electric cooktop that surprisingly hadn't been
updated. The interior is the usual Bertram Formica city
with a twist. The counter tops are hunter green with matching
dinette table and upholstery. The interior dcor on this
17 year old boat was reportedly original and, despite
its age looked remarkably good though it lacked any kind
of window treatment. The window frames were completely
exposed and showed a surprising lack of corrosion and
no sign of leakage except for the usual around the two
lower windshield opening sections. Only six inches high,
these vents are great and will bring in a tremendous amount
of air flow if you can't or don't want to use the A/C.
Coupled with the two opening windows in the aft bulkhead,
plus the side windows, you just won't find a boat with
better natural ventilation.
Whenever
you find a boat with exceptionally large interior space,
you'll usually find that much of it comes at the expense
of storage space. Not so on this boat, for there is a
surprising amount of easily accessible interior storage
space.
The head
compartment is adequately sized, but there's nothing fancy
about it. It doubles as a shower stall with a wrap around
shower curtain that is anything but convenient. I'd be
more inclined to shower out on deck than trying to avoid
watering down the whole interior by using this silly affair.
Moving
out to the cockpit, the first things you notice are the
low profile motor boxes and the huge overhang of the house
top, which is something like three feet. Many will appreciate
this feature as neat place to get out of the sun or rain
without having to hole up inside the cabin.
Motor boxes
may seem like an annoyance or a terrible waste of good
deck space, but keep in mind that this is only a 33 foot
boat. In order to get a nice low and level cockpit deck,
the raised motor boxes are the trade-off. Yet in return
for that bit of inconvenience, you also get a nice place
to sit or temporarily store stuff out of the way. The
area is large enough that you can even place deck chairs
up there and sit in them.
Engine
access, as you can see from the photos, couldn't be better,
whether you got gas or diesels. This is a wonderfully
easy boat to maintain, from tightening up the stuffing
boxes, to changing spark plugs and cleaning sea strainers
-- hey, everything is easy to reach. Most of these boats
will have generators, and here is a big sore spot: that
dang leaky aft hatch cover that pours water all over the
genny. It's hard to keep a generator dry back there. Even
so, the original Onan 6.5 Kw rattletrap ball of rust was
still running . . . . barely. The
Bridge The
bridge is as large and well designed as could possibly
be on a boat this size. The console is set aft with passenger
seating in front. This rather standard and convenient
design is typically found only on larger boats. The space
for the two pedestal helm seats aft of the console leaves
enough room to get by them without causing the helmsman
to move -- a rarity on even much larger boats, and a point
that I've always considered critical. If you don't have
adequate room around the helm chairs without getting all
tangled up in them, then the boat is no damn good for
fishing or diving as you'll spend most of your time getting
untangled from the dang chairs. No problem with the 33,
this one's designed right.
You could
certainly gripe about the helm panel and wonder what the
hell was the designer thinking when he did this one. You
know that on the 28,30 and 31 there wasn't space for an
adequately sized panel, but that can't be the excuse here.
No, what the designer did here was to use the design
of those previous models, with a most unsatisfactory result.
Meaning that there is no space to mount your gizmos forward
of the wheel. However, off to the right there is a large
flat area on which you can either build an electronics
box, or bracket mount them, plus you've got one of those
goofy hinge-out vertical cabinets in which to mount a
radar, now that radar units are half the size they used
to be.
Despite
these relatively minor gripes, the one big plus is lots
of elbow room. You'll note that the wheel is up plenty
high, as are the engine controls. Then there is a nice
foot cove built into the front of the helm so that you
can slide the seat far forward for seated operation without
having to hunch over and get sore shoulders due to the
chair/wheel positioning not being right. Altogether, I'd
give this bridge an A rating. Construction
Issues This
may come as a surprise to some, but this boat has rather
weak hull sides, particularly up in the bow area where
a lack of adequate framing results in hull side flexing
that can result in rather extensive, but very hard to
see, gel coat stress cracking. This seems to be related
to the high stresses that come with stuffing the bow into
a wave. In any case, this condition had existed for a
long time with no implication for potential hull failure.
Bertram has always used the very hard Cook Chemical gel
coats which are brittle and therefore very prone to stress
cracking.
Otherwise,
this model line has never turned up any hull faults in
any of the many boats I have surveyed. Stringers and framing
is all glass over plywood. But not to worry, it is all
fir plywood of the highest quality that is remarkably
rot resistant. We've seen this stuff immersed in water
for decades with nary a sign of rot.
The decks
on this boat are cored, Balsa in some places, plywood
in others. Yet we've seen remarkably few instances of
core rot, owing to designers who know what they're doing.
And though the hull/deck joint is bolted, the fiberglass
thickness at the gunwales is much too thin, leaving the
toe rails excessively weak and highly prone to stress
cracking. In fact, you'd have a hard time finding one
of these boats on which the toe rails didn't have some
stress cracking, and sometimes a lot. It's not really
a problem short of the degraded appearance, and most people
just accept it for what it is. And yes, it's got those
God-forsaken aluminum rub rails, attached with the bolts
that hold the deck on, so replacing any damaged rail sections
is related to the ability to get at the nuts on the inside,
which isn't always easy. This can, in fact, become a costly
repair problem.
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| A pair of Crusaders
almost look lost in these big holes |
Another
interesting point is the depth of the bilges. Though the
cockpit is quite low, you can go down through the center
hatch between the engines and still there is room to crawl
around down there. The batteries are located aft between
the engines, and you can get down there to service them.
Then, you lift the hatch on the forward bilge area and
find that it's almost like a basement down there. Standing
on the hull bottom, the cabin sole is chest high. The
point here is that there is loads of good storage space
in this area. Plus you've got the A/C, water heater, pumps
and other stuff down there and it's all easy to reach.
Need to add something? No problem, installations are a
snap on this boat because there's no problem stringing
wires, running plumbing or just finding space to mount
something.
Long
Term Durability
At seventeen
years old, one look and it was plainly evident that this
particular boat had had a rough life. It was poorly maintained
by one or more severely under-funded owners with a propensity
for never doing anything right. Yet despite this long
term neglect, this boat has held up remarkably well. It
stands as a rare testament to the art of boat building
when accomplished by skilled and knowledgeable people
who care about the quality of their products. A couple
of shining examples are the aluminum window frames which
showed remarkably little corrosion. Another is how the
badly faded gel coat was easily restored to a gleaming
luster after we hand tested a small spot with a mild compound
-- by hand!
Performance
Well, it's
a Bertram and she handles the seas about like you'd expect.
Especially with that very low center of gravity, she doesn't
roll much and what roll there is, is a very kindly roll.
But, like most Bertrams of her size, she is fairly wet.
That's the price you pay for a full bow with lots of interior
volume.
She handles
a nasty head sea medium well. Note that her entry
is not super fine or particularly deep. With the bridge
being so far forward, you will get more of a sense that
she's pounding because you are sitting right up there
in the pounding area, in contrast to a boat with the helm
further aft. On a scale of one to ten, I'd rate her performance
at around eight. As for production boats of her class,
I can't think of anything better except the 33 Blackfin.
Our survey
example had a pair of clapped out Crusader 454's that
wouldn't turn up beyond 3800 RPM for a top speed of 22kts.
With fresh engines you could expect to see 24-25 knots
at an uncomfortable 36 gph fuel burn on a 22 knot cruise.
Shown in a nearby photo is a 33 that has been totally
refurbished and repowered with a pair of Cat 3208, 425
hp diesels that turned her into a real speed demon (32
kts). These engines were an original option and all these
boats were designed to take that kind of power. If you
wanted to repower with Cummins B or C block engines, the
engine boxes would have to raised up about 6", but
the Cats will fit with no modifications except shafts
and struts.
Because
of their inherent good looks and great design features,
these 33's are increasing becoming a hot item for serious
refurbishment jobs. By serious, I mean people lavishing
up to several hundred grand on such projects. That little
fact probably tells you more about what some people think
of this boat than anything I could say.
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