VIDEO - Sunk Bertram Discussion

Well said..................... AMEN

To me it is not that hard to see "what happened to the boat". Sequence of events and other details may never be known but the boat itself paints the big picture pretty well. (just my opinion at this point, which could change with new information)

The real mystery in my mind at this point is..
"What happened to the boat?"
Have they found it yet? Is it still missing again?
I find it incredible that no buoy or transponder was put on a wreck that is in only 80ft of water, sitting upright with maybe 50ft of tower left.....

Maybe I "watch too many movies" ;-)

What information do you have that says it was lost again since the video was shot? There is a report that the vessel has been dove since and that the fishing gear and seats and whatever else have been removed from the boat which leads me to believe that it is in a known location. I have not seen anything that reports the vessel missing after that.

This is where it sounded like it vanished again. Did I miss a post where it was re-located?
I was looking for news on that.

btw, here is an interesting article from Pascoe about latent defects and insurance. Insurance may not be relevant in this case but it is a good article to read for those interested in this sort of thing.
(btw, Pascoe has a great financial blog as well)
I have read most of his books and believe he is one of the few who is brave enough to "tell it like it is"
He has railed on Sea Ray for years about their construction and cored bottoms.

enjoy.

http://www.yachtsurvey.com/latent_defects.htm

I could be wrong, so don't quote me on this, but I think ice is made of water.

Please Don't Feed The Trolls....

Yeah, I saw that as well, but it was one comment in the ether, and the boat had been lost previously. I have no clue as to the credibility of that voice and to whether the comment is from fresh info or old info. That's why I was wondering if there was any corroboration on that comment. If you read through all that is here on this subject, you'll see why I regard much written suspect as to accuracy.

The only reason I paid attention to it was it seems to be from a local who could be talking to the divers. (according to his profile anyway)
Pacoe had a link to a local thread where divers were talking about having been down there on it. I will check to see if that thread is still there or updated.

Admin Edit: Link Removed. Please Read Our Rules.

Freeze-Thaw Brief Review

Freeze Thaw behavior inside a fiber-composites and wood has similar behavior.

Water when frozen expands approximately 9% by volume. This extrapolates to 2.9% per axis in an X-Y-Z Coordinate system. This in not enough strain to cause micro-cracking in most of these materials used for marine applications. In the absence of new micro-cracking each freeze cycle the crack will not propagate. Rock has very low strain to failure thus the dramatic opposite effect over thousands of years.

Freeze thaw in an air-space is much different from that of a saturated material. The mitigating factor is that 100% water saturation does not mean only water....

I agree with you on the varying degrees of waterproofness but there is another aspect to look at - structural performance in the 'saturated' condition. Many materials are nearly unaffected by water exposure - chlorine and fluorine containing polymers for instance, others can have drastic changes in performance up to total dissolution. Wood normally has its best mechanical performance at 10-16% moisture content.

in the case of saturation - we can ask when was the last time you saw a tree or wood boards or a Corvette body with freeze thaw damage ?

Designers do not design with laboratory temperature mechanical performance data. They are interested in the numbers at the lower and upper extremes of the expected operating environment.

There is a lot to cover on this topic but much of the research and testing has been done. The now 50+/- year experience with fiberglass composite materials stands on its own.

I hope this was helpful.

Yes, thank you.

With a fairly decent sized piece of forested property I do get to see trees with freeze-thaw damage, but in most cases the effects are not visible until either the tree is cut down or there is some outside force acting on it (typically wind) and are the result of debarking and scarification.

I was under the impression, mistaken apparently, that in order to attain the much vaunted rigidity and the impermeable bonding, that not only would everything in the sandwich be designed for near-identical rates of thermal expansion, but also to limit the amount of 'give' in the material. It seems that there is more flexibility than others have claimed.

To your knowledge, am I correct to assume (given the environment in which these materials are intended to exist) that haloclasty is also a consideration in their engineering?

Thank you for my word of the day. I had to look it up. I have not see this type of deposit/crystallization inside a sandwich laminate regardless of core material. But a 3x expansion rate would be detrimental to most laminates inside, for example, an unfilled core joint or contour cut.

My first thought is that unlike in geology they lack the mechanism to form, but that is not my area of expertise.

As for CTE - That normally is a check list item for design. In sandwich construction if ignored can lead to panel distortion due to differential temperature from one side to the other. I have experienced this with some aluminum sandwich panels in the past. Also I have had some claim this on wood sandwich doors but is really a moisture absorption effect.

bertram's defenses

bertram finally responded to the complaint and, as expected, it denied all or most of the significant allegations. it then asserted 17 defenses, a copy is attached. most interestingly, bertram is aiming its cannon at marine max, the plaintiff (to be expected), the captain of the ship and others. the nature and number of defenses reveal that its litigation strategy is very aggressive and not very open to compromise at this juncture.

Wow. I think a lot of those statements aren't going to hold water in court. The modifications they speak of, are they referring to putting a tower on the boat? 50% of sportfish have towers and a sportfish is designed by naval architects to have the stability and weight carrying ability of a tower. Fishing tournaments, how many sportfish haven't fished in a fishing tournament at least once in their life. Don't consumers generally buy a sportfish of this caliber with serious sportfishing in mind? If the owners bought the boat with chartering it in mind, what does that have to do with the boat disintegrating long before it even got to the owner and ever saw a charter? Bertram eludes that the owner while it was under delivery was still MarineMax, if that is the case why isn't their insurance stepping up to the plate.

I would say that this is going to end up in court and get dicey. All in all the owner will probably prevail. In my opinion Bertram not stepping up to the plate is going to really cost them for decades with future customers, and severely effect the long term viability of the company itself.

What you are saying Capt.J is very different from what Bertram is stating.
But to make you a summary, here it goes.
Bertram is saying in all these points that having the boat been used before (I think I read it had 500 hours) and being Bertram not aware of this sale the boat falls out of our gurantee protection. For the charter Bertram is again putting further shield to itself, saying that this particular Bertram was built for a private use purpose first and it had no commerical charter upgrade.
I think Bertram can get a bit of a point if they have been not advised of the sale, and did not check the yacht before the transfer. This 630 was built in end 2005, and at 2009 it was already four years old.

I think the lawyers will prevail. They are really working overtime. These defences should give pause to anybody buying any boat from any manufacturer. It's a primer in how many ways there are to not honor a warranty. I saw similar from another manufacturer of a very popular European cruising yacht a while back. The biggest loser or at least the one who can least afford the costs being incurred is Jason Milius. I'd expect that bankruptcy is in his near future. Captains take note.

This just might be the boat that puts them out of business. Not MM, but the Bertram line specifically.

Aside from the sinking, this reminds me of Westship and their last build debacle of Boardwalk, now Fighting Irish.

Hi,

I would say the Captain mentioned and MM will have trouble denying any business relationship as he seems to have been using a MM E mail addy in a lot of places on the net in regard to boat sales.

He, his father and Surfside 3 (MM) have been tied at the hip for many years.

Given the defenses listed I think a person would be ill advised to buy any Ferretti boat. Can't help but think it will have a chilling effect throughout the industry.