VIDEO - Sunk Bertram Discussion

I saw that too. He certainly "appears" to be a MMax employee.
Boat salesman.
Young guy too 35?

Bertram's response sure sounds like a bunch of lame excuses but it does make me wonder if they know something we don't.
If they do, it might be a good idea to "come out with it" since right now they don't look so good. They would need to know something better then the buoy or underwater storm theory to convince me. But maybe they do....
We have made mistakes in our yard before. If that happened to me, I would do everything i could to make the guy happy quick and make the problem go away before it hurt my reputation.

The way they are handling this is amazingly poor judgment in my opinion and not really in Bertram's long term best interest. (just my opinion at this time)
However, if they know something significant about the boat or the captain that we don't maybe they are doing the right thing. Even if this is the case damage to the name is still being done while this drags on.

I'm surprised how few "quality" manufacturers make good on their mistakes. Post Marine had/has a gelcoat issue it admits and is suing the gelcoat manufacturer over. But as an owner of one of the effected boats, I could not get any help from the Company though they admitted my model year was one of the effected group. Great boat, but I would never buy another one from them or recommend them because of their poor customer skills.

. At this point it looks like they are committed to a legal battle. In that case any admission will be used against them. PR is secondary. They're playing for all the marbles, and they could indeed win. It's not like they're trying to maintain a relationship with Marine Max, and it could indeed fall 100% on MM and the captain given the legal theories.

I would recommend taking a look at how Toyota is handling the massive recall and product liability issue to see how primary PR should be in the face of bad news. They had a few massive fumbles, but are now getting ahead of the news to do damage/crisis control.

Remember, the job of PR is to get cheap/free advertising and testimonials. Bertram (Ferretti) fumbled this one in a big way by immediately going to bunker mentality. The public face was (and is) an upraised middle finger... that's what is going to cost them the business, not product liability lawsuits or a sunken boat. Litigation is the most expensive way out (for both sides), the 'nuclear option,' if you will, and should have been a last resort.

Everyone gets so panicked about product liability lawsuits, when good PR and good customer service would go a long way toward preventing or forestalling any such suits. even when the message is a mea culpa, people are generally willing to give the benefit of the doubt if the company talks the talk and walks the walk of doing what they can to back their product up... even when it is more than they are legally obliged to do. That kind of action (good faith) goes a long way in the courtroom as well as the court of public opinion. The customer (especially at the high end toy level) doesn't want the expense uncertainty or time uncertainty of litigating.

The customer wants their boat. They want to trust that their dollars were well spent. I don't know a court in the land that can provide either of those.

As my grandfather said many times (and I think I've mentioned here), "When you have nothing left, you've still got your reputation and your perversions. And if you live long enough, you can't satisfy your perversions."

Ferretti just flushed Bertram's reputation... so what have they got left but litigation?

Doesn't sound like the boating business I've known for the past 30 years. (Before that it was a lot of smaller companies that usually cared about reputation because individuals were in charge rather than banks and CEOs.) Can't tell you how many times I've heard 'F-the customer'. Reputation today is bought and sold with advertising dollars. Backing the customer is the last resort.

Exactly. I long for the days when boat builders were family enterprises and "family pride" was important. Those names meant something.
C.N. Ray, Don Aronow, Christopher Smith, and yes Dick Bertram are all probably spinning in their graves.
Those guys built reputations that gave their names value.
Now, you just get investors looking for this months numbers and maximum short term return. The boats show it...

Interesting.............. I understand the need to plead all possible defenses, but (m) is interesting. If your boat is owned by a corporation and it is used in a fishing tournament and it was used commercially (you hired a captain).... then the manufacturer's warranty is void?
Is that two separate claims? or a combination?
Also Bertram does not seem to mention their warranty on their web site (I may have missed it).

Curt

Here in the northest, Russel(l) Post was one of those names....remember the old Egg Harbors?

and don't put a tower on it or use it in a fishing tournament....
those activities void the warranty....
lol

I ran a 1999' 50' Post SF that Post paid to have the entire boat painted with Awlgrip due to this bad gelcoat at Post' expense (a few years ago). What year is yours and when did you try to get them to cover it?

Just because it doesn't sound like it doesn't mean that the current state is the way it should be.

If anything, this fiasco should serve as a cautionary tale for other yards. It's a lot easier to spend the PR dollars when the business is booming, and its one of the things that is foolishly cut when business drops off a bit.

You don't have to back the customer to back your product - sometimes the customer actually is at fault. It matters how you deliver the message, even when the message isn't the one you want to deliver. The short term expense of doing the right thing is always less than the long term cost of f'ing the customer.

You can buy a lot of advertising for $2,000,000. Plus remember that their position is and has always been that they are not at fault and that they have no responsibility due to Marine Max's actions. Would you admit to a damage claim if you felt someone else was at fault? Their answer gives a reasonable argument. Bertram has put Marine Max and the captain solidly, front and center on the fire. I haven't seen anything from Marine Max contradicting that. Maybe Marine Max should just admit it was their fault for the sake of PR. They can plant the blame on the captain and let their insurance company pay before they get trashed too.

I'm not sure if this rightly belongs in a court of admiralty law/maritime law or if it is actually a consumer products issue despite Bertram's legal team's claim.

Was MarineMax the owner of the boat at the time of sale? Or were they a franchised manufacturer rep? With many manufacturers, they will have a list of approved aftermarket accessories which don't void the warranty. If PipeWelders is an approved tower but ABC Tuna Towers of Podunk is not and an ABC tower was installed, that's grounds for denial of warranty claims. However, if the boat was used as a "dealer demonstrator" and it was still Bertram's Bertram, then most of their defenses will be summarily tossed.

The legal filing looks more like the shotgun method than anything else - spray everything, and maybe something will hit the target. AKA, throw enough dung at the wall, eventually some will stick.


(i) makes no sense, because it implies that the only way the UCC is enforceable is in the case of a transaction with the government. Not only is that nonsense, the UCC expressly provides for international transactions (Art. 1, Part 2) and implied warranties to remote purchasers as well as defining these terms in addition to what constitutes a sale in (Art. 2, Parts 2 & 3).

Any defense that speaks to intended use will also be tossed out on its ear because it was purchased by a private party and was not in commercial use at the time.

It would be prudent to mind § 2-313B through 2-315...

Was this dealer demo boat sold as new - never titled, registered, or documented other than in dealer's name?

Bertram marketing on their own website encourages owners to inform Bertram of in which fishing tournaments they take part.
http://www.bertram.com/display-news.aspx?chaid=210055 implies corporate commitment to owners' remedy, while expressly stating a 2 year full warranty and 5 year hull (and all fiberglass deck parts) warranty for 2009 and later yachts.

The "About" section of the Bertram website further states:

This could be construed as implying fitness for the normal use to which this boat had, to date, been subjected.

(p) may be the most galling defense, because it rests on "strict products-liability theory" while tossing precedent out the window. The galling bit is the reliance on legal theory for commercial manufacturers immediately after stating they are not a commercial products manufacturer... a statement that came hot on the heels of stating they're not a consumer products manufacturer. If their products are fit for neither consumer nor commercial use, then what is their intended use? This defense actually opens them up to a lot more legal liability than it protects them from.


I can't see Bertram's defenses holding any water (no pun intended) in any reasonable venue. That Bertram is trying quixotically to relegate this to a Federal court of admiralty law while completely overlooking the saving to suitors clause is, in itself, an affront to reason. Nothing in the case law that I have found so far excludes financial or economic injury from the state courts.

Personally, I think you fully understand what I'm saying but you're being stubborn about this point for the sake of argument, as you were with the buoy red herring (which is conspicuously absent from the list of possible defenses, except possibly encompassed in a generic statement - (o)).

I'd like to believe that to be the case, anyhow.

In any event, all I've said specifically about Bertram is that they have stonewalled rather than being forthcoming - the message does not and did not necessarily have to be "our product sucks and fell apart" as you seem to be assuming in your replies. It could have been a simple reassurance such as "we're looking into the matter and want to reassure our owners that we will work to find out what happened." That admits nothing, but paints the company in a cooperative and proactive light. Instead, they went nuclear first - making wild and unsubstantiated claims about a buoy collision (based on a smudge of black paint common to countless boats) among other fantastic tall tales.

There are 24 letters between A and Z, many shades of grey between white and black. Just as Bertram jumped immediately to the lawyers, you are refusing to see that the message can be somewhere between "we had nothing to do with it" and "it was completely our fault." That in between is where PR exists most of the time. I don't pretend to be the world's greatest captain, but I do know a thing or two about advertising and public relations.

That's what courts are for. The ball is squarely in Marine Max's hands now. Why are they being so silent? What are they afraid to say?

Capt J: I Have a '98 that I purchased thru a Connecticut dealer in 2001 with about 300 hours. A few years ago I started noticing the cracks starting in my cockpit sole. My yard manager commented on it and asked me if I was jumping off the flybridge instead of using the ladder. Called Post, they said there was no problem they knew of. Told me if I ground the gelcoat down, I'd see that the structural glass was fine. Started seeing cracks in the deck, called Post, they said, again, no problem. Even my diesel mechanic commented. Next, had my glass guy at the yard look at it. He told me I had BIG problems. Called Post and finally convinced them to inspect the boat. They did, but called it normal wear and tear on their "million dollar" boat. I posted on another forum asking whether anyone else had this cracking problem, and was "knocked over' to find out that, all the while I was speaking with Post, it was suing its gelcoat supplier, and had identified 36 other boats that had my identical problem. So much for "Quality not quantity." Even though I am a laywer the cost of the lawsuit exceeded the repair costs, so I took the hit. Seems to me the "right" thing to do was to have me bring the boat to their nearby manufacturing center to seal and spray the deck and cockpit, 2 days work in the middle of the winter, and I would having been singing their laurels instead of boring everyone with this rant ...

What should they say? So far they have not been the subject of scrutiny. They effected a transaction and apparently did so in accordance with local and state law.

They didn't build the boat, they sold the boat. If their captain crashed the boat, then the best thing they can say is they are working with their insurer to determine any liability, and that their captain is now seeking greener pastures. In the meantime, their best PR bet is to remain the third party, dragged unwillingly into court by a brand they no longer represent - perhaps they can point to this as a good reason they no longer represent the company.

But is that what you wanted to hear? Or are you seriously asking why, if MarineMax had nothing to do with it, they are failing to deny it? That's a logical fallacy called begging the question, combined with the loaded question. The particular circular logic employed intends the reader to draw the conclusion of guilt simply by asking the questions in a certain way. While that may be a common conversational terrorism tactic of the nightly cable news infotainment programs, it's surprising to see it used in the context of this forum.

As to your first point, avoiding going to court is what good PR and customer service are for.

Not boring at all. Would you have had the same reaction if Post had told you that the cracks are merely cosmetic and not something to be troubled about, but they were aware of the supplier issue? Would it have assuaged you to know in advance that they were pursuing the gelcoat manufacturer and, while they may not be able to do anything to remedy your complaint (due to age and/or use as a demo), they were working to ensure that it would not be a future or ongoing problem? Would you be singing their praises if they sent you to a yard that had repaired other boats of that vintage to a high quality?

Would you consider a newer Post if you knew the company was consistently working to ensure their next product would be better than their last?

I think a good bit of the issue is that MMs insurance company is handling the defense as is most likely stipulated in their policy and are using the "deny, deny, deny" tactic. They are looking out for themselves rather than MM. I still believe that MM will be the party held liable in this and their insurance will have to pay the claim. The sad thing is MM is going to suffer damages to their business over the way the insurer is handling this. Question is, will they be able to prove damages caused by the insurer and collect on those.

Seafarer: I'm not sure how to answer that question, because they did none of that, but rather, in my opinion, deliberately hid what they knew to be a problem from a customer who was simply looking for help.