Hatteras Yachts and their old hull molds...

I was in Antigua Wednesday- Friday on an un-expected trip down there. A friend of mine needed a starter right away and I flew down there with it for him. I'll dig the pictures up and scan them sometime this week for you for sure.

They were lent to a company that was doing a joint venture with Bertram, the boats were called Caribbean and then later Southern Cross. Truly awful, they looked like bertrams but were built like crap.

31 was around till just before Ferretti took over. 46 was sold to a group that was doing a joint venture between MTU, Panasonic and Diaship, several were built under the "diaship" name with MTU power in the early 90's. The molds are still sitting around miami. The 58 hull mold was stretched to 70' by bertram, they never built anything out of the molds once it was stretched. The hull mold was then sold to Defender Yacht, they built a ton of big commercial boats from those molds.

Wrong. What you saw for sale were a bunch of 76' Bertram fiberglass parts (72' SF with a cockpit extension) that were purchased by the owner of Reel Deal yachts who then assembled them into an unrigged yacht. He later sold that hull, deck, flybridge to a guy in italy who spent a fortune to turn it into this. I had several friends that worked on that boat while in italy, from what I'm told it's literally a work of art, finished far better than anything that a production boat builder ever built. The owner was supposed to buy the tooling for the 72' and move them to italy, but as I understand it right after this boat was completed and sea trialed, he committed suicide. The 72' molds as well as the remaining molds that were out back at the factory were there till last year when they got crushed and thrown away.

D_mn shame.

I don’t want to hijack the discussion, but there is some misinformation being bandied about. This also helps explain what happens to molds.

Bertram 31. It was NOT in production until Ferretti bought the company. Production ran from its debut at the 1961 New York Boat Show until 1983. The molds sat unused until 1986, when Bertram, seeing a sales op, built 23 Special Edition Silver Anniversary 31s with oak interiors. Ferretti didn't buy Bertram until October of 1998. During that run, a total of 1860 31s were built.

Aussie Bertrams: From 1963, Arch Spooner and later his family, as owners of International Marine in Melbourne, built Bertrams under license at Caribbean Gardens, Scoresby, Victoria for 26 years, ending only when Bertram was acquired by Ferretti. At that time, International Marine purchased the molds, intellectual property and designs and integrated them into their own line, marketed under the Caribbean brand name. If you look at their website (www.caribbeanboats.com), you will quickly recognize the 31 and 25 hulls.

The Italian Connection: The Whittaker Corp. was a major player in boating from 1968 to 1985, owning Bertram, Columbia Yachts, Trojan and Riva, long before Riva was acquired by Ferretti. During that time, Riva built the Bertram 20 Bahia Mar and the Bertram 25 Sportfish in Italy, and these beautifully built boats are now collector items.

The Diaship Connection: Diaship, the American representative for Heesen Shipyard in Holland (which built the high-speed Octopussy), wanted to build a mid-40’ sportfisher for Japan, at the behest of Matsu****a Electric (the owner of Panasonic among other companies). They acquired use of the out-of-production Bertram 46 hull mold, restyled the deck, and called it the 46’ Striker by Diaship. They were also marketed in the U.S. under the name Diaship, with MTU power (and Mercedes-Benz financing).

Who said the 31 was in production up until Ferretti? The molds were out back and were only recently destroyed.

Bertram sent moulds to a company in Victoria Australia and for a while they used the Bertram name and then to Bertram-Carribean and now just Carribean. Hatteras sent moulds to the original Marina brand in New South Wales Australia and they built a few 52's. Marina then became Riviera then Bill Barry Cotter sold it and developed the Maritimo Brand.

Here is a pic of an Australian Built 52 Hatteras

I would like to know what happened to some of the older MY hulls like the 53, 56, 74/75 mod 80s - 2005?

Call and ask.

The last time I was by Hatteras they'd cleaned out a bunch of old molds and only had a dozen or so out behind their yard. The one drive out into the woods had been cleaned. Now the other drive still had a bunch of junk down it, but not molds. I would say the junk factor of their yards had been reduced about 50%. Even all the stands were neatly organized. I suspect Versa encouraged it as their background is much like mine and it was the first thing I noticed on my first trip there.

Why would anyone ever want to use those molds? The newer hulls are such an improvement in all aspects over those.

You could send Morgan Bertram an email or give him a call ... see what he says.

email: REMOVED