There are some boats that just get into your blood. For many sportfish aficionados, Bertram Yachts easily come to mind. Ask a handful of owners and many, if not all, will wax poetic about their beloved Bertram (with some even having owned multiple ones over the years). This was the case for Robert Shapiro, whose love for the brand started as a teenager and eventually led him to own two different models, for a time concurrently, as an adult.
“I grew up in South Florida,” says Shapiro. “Bertram was the pinnacle of small sportfish boats. The 31 is considered a quintessential boat. Most boaters agree that Ray Hunt, who designed it for Dick Bertram, had it perfect—the proportions of the flybridge; the super structure; the hull beam to length ratio… It’s wet and storage is not great, but they are bullet proof, and if well maintained, just run and run. There is a famous fishing lodge in Panama that has a fleet, and they’ve been running them since the 60s, repowering the boats with multiple generations.”
The first Bertram that Shapiro owned was the Bertram 33 Sportfish. “Some people say that the 33 is a little ‘big boat,’ while the 31 is a big ‘little boat.’ The 33 is only two feet longer but weighs almost double and has a really high freeboard so it could handle running the Gulf Stream; we could run to the Bahamas in the wintertime, as long as we had flexible weather windows. A few times the weather might not have worked in our favor, but that boat could take a beating and handle it safely.” Shapiro especially loved the massive cockpit on this boat. “My family are outdoors people,” he says, “so the cockpit is more of a common space for us than the salon would be for most people.”
When Shapiro’s kids were moving from elementary into middle school, they realized the family would not be able to do as many long weekends on the boat during the school year. Prior to this, they would often fly down to Florida on a Thursday, go boating on the 33, and then return on a Monday, as they could get over to the Bahamas safely in that boat. Then one day, Shapiro tells us, he saw a 1986 Bertram 31 that came up for sale in New Jersey. It was an “Anniversary Edition” and was hull 16 of 25 made in 1986—the last year that Bertram model was made. Shapiro says that he “made the mistake of going to see it,” and then he “made the mistakes of making an offer, having a survey, and purchasing it.” But if you could hear him recounting this story, you would know it was by no means a mistake. When Shapiro purchased the 31, he began leaving his 33 down in Florida.
“I had the intention of repowering both boats to diesel,” says Shapiro. “I bought the 33 knowing that as soon as one of the engines clapped out, I would repower it. That was in 2008 at Sarles. I bought the 31 with gassers, but I knew I was going to repower it with diesels. I used it for about two years until one engine blew out. I ran back on one engine from Lewes, DE, and headed straight to Worton Creek Marina, called my Cummins guy, and said, ‘let’s get it going.’”
Shapiro brought the 33 back up here from Florida and used it for about two years while the 31 was being repowered. The 33 was originally called Lulu, after Shapiro’s daughter, and the 31 was called Muffin during the four years of overlapping ownership. Once the 31 was finished, Shapiro sold the 33 and renamed the 31 Lulu in 2017.
So, in that span of time, apart from the repowers, we asked him about upkeep for his current boat. Shapiro chuckled at that, explaining how “there’s upkeep and there are projects.” Upkeep of course being the usual yearly maintenance, while projects can be more about ‘wants’ rather than ‘needs.’
“The gentleman who owned the boat (the 31) prior to me was a New Jersey offshore fisherman,” he says. “They would travel two to three hours out to the fishing grounds, so it was set up for a bunch of guys to cruise all the way out there and fish all day. It had a microwave and a TV and a large fridge that was super old. We’re very much cooler-type people,” he added. “So, we pulled everything off the dash and had that replaced, bought a smaller, more modern fridge and placed the microwave on top of the fridge (but under the small galley counter) to clean up the interior; it gives us a little more space. I’m thinking of having the windows redone; I think they can last another 20 years if I just get them cleaned up and re-caulked versus replacing them.”
He explained how some sportfish owners will glass over the front windows. But not the Shapiros. “We prefer moorings over slips,” he says. “We want to be able to open the windows, get a good breeze. The breeze actually comes through all the way to the cockpit. And we often do junior race committee for Annapolis Yacht Club (AYC); we’ve done it for about 26 years, first on the old Lulu and now on our current Lulu.”
There’s one other thing Shapiro mentioned regarding projects, and it’s an unfortunate reality. “If you boat 200-plus hours a year as we do, sometimes, you hit stuff.” It doesn’t matter how careful you are. He recounted how they hit part of a tree that was floating off Nantucket, as well as numerous things in the water while heading down the ICW. “The more time you spend on the water, the more you’re going to have stuff that goes wrong. It sucks, but it’s part of boating.”
And for Shapiro, there’s no better boat to experience the ups and downs on than a Bertram. In fact, he has not been “Bertram-less” since 2004. When asked to try and summarize what makes the brand so special, he said: “There are very few boats where entire families fight over who is going to inherit the boat, and they replace the engine three or four times; that’s super rare. Most boats get destroyed when it’s time for an engine replacement.
“And they are as pretty as can be; wonderfully built for a multitude of uses. It’s almost creepy how many people, no matter what port you’re in, will come up and tell you how pretty she is or start telling you about their grandfather who had one… and the 31 in particular. For us, this one is part of the family.”
Interview by Kaylie Jasinski