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Bertram 38II & 38III Sport Fisherman
by Peter Bohr
The Heat’s Still On - Bertram cooked up classics with the 38II and III
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“Ok Mr. Rybovich. The heat’s on,” proclaimed the full-page ads in national boating magazines. With that challenge in 1969, Bertram introduced its 38II Sport Fisherman to serious anglers everywhere.
John Rybovich, a legendary name in big game fishing, probably paid little heed to Bertram’s bluster. After all, Rybovich turned out a handful of essentially custom-made wooden sportfishing boats each year, while Bertram popped out scores of them in fiberglass.
But the Bertram 38 proved to be a winner, becoming almost as renowned as its little sister, the Bertram 31. And like Mr. Rybovich’s creations, the 38II and the 38III that followed several years later were made for a single purpose to catch fish.
“The original hard-core no-nonsense sportfishing boats,” is how Martin Kohlbry, Sea’s consultant fishing fanatic, described the 38II and 38III. “They each have a huge cockpit, an unbreakable hull, a sensible interior layout – and V-berths. When it comes to real sportfishing boats, V-berths separate the men from the … ah, girls.”
No question about that, Martin – which of course is precisely why so many new boats today, even ones purporting to be serious fishing boats, have walk-around island beds instead of V-berths.
“The days when a man bought himself a sportfishing boat are over,” said Jay deBeaubien, a broker at Barbary Coast Yacht Sales in San Rafael, California.
“Today, when a fellow writes out a check for a quarter of a million or a half million, he’s got to sell his wife on the boat. Wives don’t generally like V-berths and lots of Formica. It took a while for Bertram to come around, but even their boats have posh interiors now.”
But not the 38. A true wash-it-down-and-walk-away boat, it was built in an age before designer décor, blacked-out forward windows and island beds got in the way of fishing.
Instead, it has two staterooms, one on the port side with upper and lower berths, and one up forward with proper V-berths – berths where two tough-guy trophy hunters can sleep comfortably. There’s also a huge head compartment, complete with a stall shower.
And both the 38II and 38III have their galleys up in the saloon; the 38II’s is an L-shaped unit, while the 38III has a Pullman style galley along the port side. Galley-down layouts are fine for cruising boats, but on a sportfisher the focus is on the cockpit, and the nearer the galley is to the action, the better.
Naturally, the Bertram’s cockpit is everything a fishing nut would want. It was lots of square feet of working area – 110 on the 38II and 100 on the 38III – so the mate can run around without tripping over a fighting chair. It also has large storage areas along the sides and under the cockpit sole.
Although a lower helm in the saloon was standard on the 38II and optional on the 38III, the boats were designed to be fished from the upper helm. The 38II’s flybridge can seat five facing forward, while the 38III has room for six.
However, it’s at the helm where both 38 foot models are obviously behind the times; neither has the space for the vast array of electronic gadgets anglers seem to require these days.
By now, many readers may be wondering if there was a 38I. Indeed there was. Bertram’s original 38 foot hull was designed in 1962 by Ray Hunt, the man responsible for the very first Bertram, the 31-footer.
The Bertram 31 revolutionized the power boat industry with its deep-V hull. Before Bertrams, the typical high-speed power boat had a sharp leading edge, rounded midsections and flat sections aft. But Hunt designed his hull with a rounded leading edge that takes on a sharp V-shape running all the way aft.
Coming down on a wave, the V acts like a wedge to cut through the seas instead of pounding down on them. Deep-V hulls also tend to ride bow-high at speed, making it difficult to bury the bow. All of this means that Bertram’s hull is superb for high-speed passage through rough seas.
However, the deep-V hull does have one major drawback: At low speeds and at anchor in a beam sea, it rolls.
“If I had my druthers, I would ride out to the fishing grounds in a Bertram and then get off and fish from a Hatteras,” said broker deBeaubien, who also happens to be an avid tournament fisherman and world record holder for Pacific blue marlin.
“There are a lot of Bertrams on the East Coast because they travel long distances, often running in head seas, to reach the fish. I’d choose a Bertram in Southern California or Mexico, but not for salmon fishing in the north.”
Successful hull or not, from the waterline up the original 38 isn’t what most people would consider particularly sexy. But Bertram changed that with one fell swoop when it introduced the 38II in 1969. Hunt’s old hull, dressed up with a new superstructure, was a real looker.
And incidentally, it was originally priced at a now unbelievable $44,990, ready to go with twin gasoline engines. Bertram built the 38II through 1974, and sold a combined total of 162 38Is and 38IIs.
The 38III followed in late 1977. Although the new model was also roughly 38 feet overall and carried a layout similar to the 38II, its hull was substantially redesigned to accommodate more power and provide more speed.
Of course, the 38III still had a deep-V configuration, but Bertram’s in-house designers refined Hunt’s design by subtracting a few degrees of deadrise – from 22 degrees to just under 20 – and by widening the chines for a little better bite and less roll.
They also reduced the boat’s beam by about a foot for less wetted surface and more speed, and increased the freeboard for more interior room. The 38III has a little less flare in the bow than the 38II, which some say makes the newer model a wetter boat.
But then, the 38III is considerably faster, at least when compared to a 38II with diesels. Many 38IIs left Bertram’s Miami factory equipped with twin gasoline MerCruisers for cruising speeds in the low 20 knot range. But with twin diesels, it only cruised at 16 to 18 knots.
Gasoline engines were also an option on the 38III, although the vast majority had diesels. The earliest 38IIIs had Cummins 555s, or “triple nickels.” But by the turn of the decade the horsepower race was well under way, and for 1981, Bertram switched to larger Cummins 903s. From 1982 until the 38III was discontinued in 1987, Caterpillar 3208s – which seemed to grow more horsepower each year – were the engines of choice.
With the Cats, the 38III cruised comfortably at 23 to 25 knots, while burning about a gallon and a half of diesel fuel per mile. That’s fast enough perhaps, although most sportfishers in the Bertram 38III’s class today cruise about 10 knots quicker.
Bertrams have always been built a cut above most sportfishers, and neither the 38II nor the 38III is an exception.
Every hose is double-clamped. The fuel tanks are custom-molded of fire-retardant resin. Every cleat is anchored to a metal backup plate, and every backup plate is molded into the fiberglass. The seacocks on the engine water intakes are massive bronze fittings. Electrical wiring is all neatly bundled, bound, and color-coded.
The list goes on. Except for an occasional case of blisters, the hulls have proved free of serious problems, and give every indication of lasting darn near forever.
When the last 38III came off the assembly line in April 1987, after a model run of 331 boats, Bertram’s 37 Convertible became its effective replacement.
A new 37-footer now costs a whopping $380,000 ready to go, while a 5- or 6-year-old 38III with twin Cats sells for around $200,000. The 38IIs often sell for under $150,000. All of which is to say that Bertram’s 38II and 38III are modern classics at bargain prices.
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This article first appeared in the April 1987 issue of Sea Magazine. All or parts of the information contained in this article might be outdated. |
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