The Bertram revolution

If there is one story that can bring together, if needed, motorboat enthusiasts and sailing fans, it is the radical transformation of motor yachting, with its protagonists Dick Bertram and Ray Hunt, who were both high-level regatta racers. The story takes place on July 16, 1958 at around 11am off the coast of Newport (Rhode Island), which traditionally hosts the America’s Cup. The day’s schedule includes the selections for the American yacht that will defend the cup a few weeks later against its international challenger. There is a whole fleet of sailing yachts competing, with the race committee boat and passenger cruisers as well, battling troughs of over 2m and winds of more than 20 knots. Ideal weather conditions for the 12M international class heavy keel boats, which are around 20 meters long, but significantly less so for the accompanying motorboats which are struggling to follow them. 

As Dick Bertram said himself: “I was on board Vim, in charge of the foredeck crew. Usually, with challenges like this, we were always very focused on our maneuvers, but this day, something really special appeared. No-one could believe their eyes. A small 23-foot motor hull, speeding along at over 30 knots, was making light work of the heavy seas. This was the first outing for our opponent’s new deep V-hull service boat, the 12M international class Easterner, designed by Raymond Hunt. I had never seen performances like this, or anywhere close to this”. At the time, Dick Bertram is a successful yacht broker based out of Miami. With his Hollywood hero appearance, this renowned classical offshore yachting enthusiast is however very open to the technical challenges of offshore motorboat competitions after taking part in the first – and formidable – long offshore race in history, the Miami-Nassau (Bahamas), two years previously.

When he sees the agility of the Easterner tender, Bertram makes a promise to himself to look into it in more detail, and the very next day, he is invited by Hunt to try out the new hull. Its inventor, a self-taught, prolific and eclectic naval architect, is a very different character, and slightly eccentric. He lives on a farm in New Hampshire, far from the sea, and creates his plans on the raised lid of his large concert piano, “an ideal drawing board” in his opinion. In addition to the Easterner and the 5.5M international class Minotaur, which took gold at the Naples Olympic Games in 1960, this world champion helmsman, who won major trophies and whose nickname is the Archimedes of New England, also created the first 13-foot Boston Whaler, the Concordia Yawls and, of course, the V-shaped hull that bears his name. 

Here, Hunt’s stroke of genius was to take an old concept that had never been accomplished and perfect it. His hull is characterized by its very pronounced and constant angle from the bow to the transom. This V-shaped design is completed with a series of longitudinal lift strips, indentations at right angles, running the length of the hull, which support a balanced helm, improving the lift and speed, while serving to deflect the waves formed by the hull passing through the water. Following his very conclusive test run on the 23-foot Hunt prototype, Bertram quickly commissions its inventor to draw up plans for a 31-foot version, which he gets built in wood, back home in Florida. On board this model, he wins the Miami-Nassau race in 1960 in particularly challenging weather conditions, with up to one day’s lead over certain competitors. In the same year, this hull, which has demonstrated its overwhelming superiority offshore, very quickly serves as a template to create the mold for the first fiberglass series Bertram, launching a trend that will be decisive for the future of the entire motorboat industry.