I've been doing some soul searching lately and possibly considering a change in boats. Unfortunately a Custom Carolina or even a new production boat is not in the budget.
I've done some investigation into the battle wagon group in the range of 48-50 footers. All-in-all I'm liking the 50 Bert late eighties...early nineties vintage. Appears to me that this boat came in two basic layouts and two different engine options.
The first layout is a 3 stateroom, 2 head, galley up design. The second layout is a 2 stateroom, 2 head, galley down design.
Available engines were the DD 8V92-TA at 735 HP. .... second engine option was the Man 10 cylinder at 820 HP.
Anyone have first hand experience on any of these??
like marlinazul said, prepare to dig deep into your pockets for fuel. One of the heaviest 50' out there for that year, almost as bad as the Eggs. You need to get back the sticker price and look at the bigger picture here. You can probably find a better hull for the money.
H-m-m-m.... I haven't seen any fuel burn numbers on them... with fuel prices these days, that's certainly a BIG consideration....anyone got any real world numbers??
Well...I did a little more research on the battle wagon class and found out that the Bertram 50 is actually the lightest hull between Viking, Hatteras and Bertram
My father-in-law had a 1988 50 Bertram with the 8v92 Detroits it cruised 23kts topped out about 29kts and burned 55/60 gal per hr. Every boat has its ups and downs the boat is a big 50' but really needs more power. I tried to get him to repower with 1000 hp Cats but he sold the boat instead. On the plus side the boat was a tank, fished well, big 50' and easy to maintain. The down side generators are under the cockpit, it was not very agile maybe do to being under powered and the engine opts that were used at the time. This boat would be a good boat with different power that is now offered today.
with 8v92's, she's underpowered severly. 46's ran that package and squeeked out a 25 kt cruise. the 10 cyl mans arent bad, but the ones that are rigged to cut out cylinders under light load vibrate like a sonofabitch. upgrade to 12v71's or 12v92s and you'll have a quicker boat that wont drink as much fuel. there are VERY few boats that will get you home in a shitstorm like a Bertram 50 will.
definitely go with the galley up layout, galley downs suck
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