45 Hatteras vs 42 Bertram

[Solanderi]

I am seriously considering and comparing a 45 Hat (1986) and a 42 Bertram (1987) which are both equipped with DD6V92's w/ similar hours on rebuilds. My application is South Florida fishing (troll, kite), occassional dock condo and occassional weekend Bahamas fishing trip. Are there any ride characteristics, anomalies, benefits etc...which makes one a more suitable choice. What is the largest dinghy that the fore deck of these hulls handle. Is the limiting factor weight or size? Thank you for any help.

 

[Genesis]

Both are good boats....

... the Bertie will roll more than the Hatt, and have a slightly softer ride in a headsea.

The Bertie won't be liked by the woman in your life, if you have one. "Spartan" is the word I'd use to describe it.

I'm not as happy with the Bert's layout in terms of systems either, although they're high quality. Service issues are a big bigger problem with the Bert - but this isn't a major deal.

Either is a good boat..... The Berts were on my short list when I was looking, but I couldn't find one I was happy with before I found my Hatt.....

 

[Solanderi]

Thank you Genesis...How about the foredeck/dinghy issue?

Any comments or concerns about the weight bearing issues of these two hulls? For example, Zodiak vs RIB vs FRP skiff ?

 

[Genesis]

Weight bearing....

Well, my waste tank is pretty far forward, it holds over 100 gallons, and I can run with it full without trouble. It DOES cost me a half-knot or so though.

You will suffer a performance hit if you stuff a significant amount of weight on those chocks. I'd also make damn sure the foredeck is in good shape and there is no core rot going on!

The crane on my boat has a rated capacity of 800lbs. I wouldn't put anything that heavy on the foredeck for ordinary use, but the crane will lift it.....

 

[Bob Bradley]

Bert vs Hatt

I had narrowed my search to the Bert 38 (later version) and the Hatt 42. After looking at 2 or 3 Berts with my wife, we looked at our first Hatt. After seeing the Hatt, my wife made it very clear that we would not be buying any Bertrams. We wound up with the Hatt 43, which is identical to the Hatt 45, less 2 feet of cockpit space. I've been very pleased with her.

 

[divernc]

Re: Bert vs Hatt

Ditto on comments from Bob Bradley. We had a Bertram 28 and I was looking for a 42, until wife saw our Hatteras 43 Convertible. End of Bertram story!

I still think the Bertie 42 and 54 are two of the handsomest "production" fishing machines I have fished on, but I need/want to stay married.

 

[Bob Bradley]

Can you imagine that?

We've got lots of complaints here.
That miserable wife of mine made me buy a Hatteras.



The B!tch.

 

[jim rosenthal]

Have you looked...

..on David Pascoe's web site? he has a lot of comments on older Bertrams and Hatts. Personally I would rather have a Hatteras, the ride is better although they are not quite a fast, and Bertrams roll more which I don't like. There is no comparison on the interior- Hatteras interiors are really well made and beautiful, Bertram interiors can charitably be described as plain and honestly described as ugly. The factory backup is much better with Hatteras, I have never seen any evidence that Bertram gave a damn about their older boats. (as a former Bertram owner encountering the total indifference of the factory) I think also more Hatteras yachts have been made, which at least in theory gives you a better chance of finding what you like at price you can afford. Have fun looking..

 

[Genesis]

Both are good boats..... but....

the wife factor will drive you to a Hatt over a Bertie in the same year range every time, unless you're talking about a Ferretti Bert, which isn't really a Bert.

The other problem you're going to find is that more Berts than Hatts have had the living crap kicked out of them as hard-core tournament boats. Why? Because that's who buys them - single men, or men who's wives HATE the water and wouldn't be caught dead on board. As such they get fished HARD, and it shows.

I have fished on Berts and they roll more than a Hatt does. They also handle a head sea better than a Hatt does, but pound-for-pound, they burn more fuel and require more go-juice for the same speed. The 42 Bert is a LOT smaller inside than the 45 Hatt - yeah, its only "three feet" but the differences inside are major and not to be ignored.

 

[George]

Bert vs. Hatt

Now if you were talking 50 Bert, I'd say no contest. I have the 45' Hatt. What you may want to think about is the fact there are over 50 45' Hatts for sale and CHEAP. You have the buyers choice of condition, where the Bert you may be a little limited. For the sail fishing, the Hatteras will perform better when live baiting. Depending on the set up, you can add a nice built in livewell for goggels for about 2K. Slane has nice molds for that. Watch out for the 6V92's however. Many are limited shelf life and should be well surveyed and pampered afterwards. If your in a hurry to get to the grounds, understand your a 21 Kt. boat. I repowered and cruise at 28 at 1900 but at 150K, but I also run 70-100 miles every weekend during the summer. You need to think of the total assesment of the boat in terms of what is has that is good vs. old and replacement. Ex. electronics, interior finishes, mechanicals, and the access to them etc. I did not read an inaccurate comment on this thread as I have spent a lot of time on each. The Bert finishes back then were not so nice, but if your thinking about spendin $ to refit the interior, meaning panelling, galley, etc. at a professional place, you need to work in advance and talk to companies like cabel marine, Cay, American, etc. about quoting the redo. Hatts, you can replace all the interior for about 7K, not including refer, tv or sofa, but all curtains, rugs galley and head flooring etc. and make it look relatively new on the inside.
Good luck with your decision, and hopefully welcome to Hatteras.

 

[Solanderi]

Great thread...

The input from folks who know both hulls is invaluable, Thank you ! I also appreciate the heads up on the live wells, I will check them out. George, what did you power up to and what kind of fuel consumption do you have compared to the 692's ?

 

[Genesis]

Nothing wrong with 6V92s

I have a pair of them.

Keys to them not blowing up on you are:

1. As with any engine, keep clean oil in them.

2. DO NOT overheat them. Ever. Overheat means any coolant temperature over 195F. Make damn sure your alarms work. These are wet liner engines. Overheats cook the liner seals, and then you get coolant/oil cross-contamination. Bye-bye engine. These engines should run at 180F - at 185F you're at the top of the "normal" range. Anything hotter and you need to find out why.

3. The airbox drains MUST be clear, and the check valves MUST work. The stock location has one behind the starter. That sucks because its impossible to get to without removing either the starter or the exhaust manifold (neither is fun.) If a check valve sticks open, you will pressurize the crankcase. If a check valve sticks closed, you will end up sucking sludge into the cylinders. Either will KILL the engine. Check valves should be cleaned every oil change. Remote 'em so you can get to them, and route the return to a crap can. Problem solved.

4. If you have Airseps, make damn sure they work right. If not, get rid of them, fix them, or buy an engine; oil pullover is extremely damaging to the aftercooler condition.

5. The aftercooler is UNDER THE BLOWER. Its a biatch to get to. If it gets sludged up, engine temperatures will rise and then you know what happens, right? Its easy to clean but requires removing the blower to get it out. A real PITA, but necessary every couple of years. Exhaust leaks and/or problem (3) and (4) will sludge it up REAL FAST.

6. Install pyrometers. Never allow exhaust temperatures after the turbo to exceed 900F. You've been warned; if you don't have pyrometers or break this rule, you'll find out why its a rule and not a suggestion :eek

7. Hatteras used Allison M-series gears. These are excellent gearboxes, BUT on the 6V92s they usually have their gear coolers on the suction side of the raw water pump. This is a crappy place for it, in that it gets clogged and vacuum on the input side of a pump does really ugly things to the maximum flow rate. You know that overheating problem I said to avoid? Now you know one of the ways it creeps up on you. Fortunately getting the cooler out to clean it is easy. Unfortunately Hatteras on the 45s was "kind" enough to put a 45 degree elbow on one end of the cooler and it has tubes where you can't rod them, making getting it really clean damn near impossible without taking it to a radiator shop where they can put it in a big ultrasonic machine. The bottom tubes where you can't get to rod them like to clog up and then you will pull very high vacuums under load, causing overheating problems.

8. At ratings over 500HP these engines are fragile. The 6xx DDECs are ticking bombs. The wise man de-rates those back to 550 maximum by underpropping. For mechanicals and maximum "safe" rating is 500HP; the 550HP engine requires a bypass blower and is just too much power out of too few cubes.

I have ~800 hours SMOH on mine, and they run like they were majored yesterday. No block heaters needed, no smoke once off the cold pegs (coolant temp > 100F). You can figure out if you've got good engines with Detroits in 30 seconds if the seller shuts off any block heaters and such for at least 48 hours and then allows you a cold start test - where you start up with NO assist - if you know what you're looking for.

The previous owner majored both engines at 1100 hours - probably due to neglect.

Before repowering, consider that you can major these engines four times for what it will cost you to repower once.

 

[jim rosenthal]

Yowza..

..if you are fortunate enough to find a boat with well-cared-for 6v92TAs which have a lot of life left in them, it is foolish not to keep them. I have found that you can make an older Hatt look great on the inside by must doing the fabric stuff over, and if you find someone who can put the items together (make drapes, beds, curtains etc) you can get the materials yourself and save tons of money. It is amazing the markup that yacht decorators charge- it is crazy. It should not cost what it does but when the word 'yacht' gets in the act the price of everything triples.
The other thing that makes an older boat look good is to hand-polish all the chromed items. I did this aas a winter project- polished and buffed what I could and had replated what I couldn't. One of the charms of the older Hatteras yachts is the hardware and stuff they had in them; most of it isn't made anymore but it can be made to look great with a little elbow grease and a buffing wheel. While it is out you can clean up the wooden surfaces as needed.
This sounds like a lot of work, but it is really not. (well, not on a 36 boat, on a 45 or 53 maybe it is). Once the metal parts are clean a few moments with polish and a rag once or twice a year keeps them as new.
It will be interesting to see what you end up with; personally if I were going up in size to a larger boat I would get a 45 or 46 Hatteras. And it would be fun, although expensive, to repower one; there are so many good engines out there now that you have an embarrassment of riches from which to make your choice. Speaking of which, does anyone know of any 45 or 46 boats that were repowered with Luggers? Just curious.

 

[saltshaker36]

42 or 45

Jim, I believe Tom Slane repowered an older 45 with Luggers. As far as the 42 Bert vs the 45 Hatt, both are excellent choices. That year Bert will have the much improved Teak interior so she should/could look good on the inside. As far as what which to buy, I looked at a lot of 42 Berts before I found my 46 Hatt. Once I saw the Hatt there was no reason for me to look at another Bert. The 45 is a different boat than my 46 but hands down I would go with the 45. The 45 is a lot more boat than the 42. Larger bridge, interior, cockpit and most importantly bigger engine room. Most 42 and 46 Berts I looked at needed major engine/engine room work. Because of the tight ER (almost impossible to service the out board side the engines) you can't work on them easily, so most owners don't work on them at all.
The Bert will roll like mad when not under way, but will run great in heavy seas. The Hatt won't roll nearly as much and will run almost as well in the same conditions. With similar HP 6V92's, the Bert should run 3-4 kts faster but most likely the Hatt will have 535HP or 550HP and the Bert should have 475HP 6V92's. Bertrams also have a reputation for needing overhauls more frequently. I think much of this is due to the poor ER access and that deep V requires a lot of HP to keep it going.
I can't imagine better factory support than that of Hatteras. They keep incredible records on their older boats and treat you as if you just bought one of their new boats. There truly is a Hatteras family. You won't get that from Bertram, Viking or any other builder I know of.
If you were comparing a 42 Bert to the 42 Hatt, I would opt for the Bert, but between the 42 Bert and the 45 Hatt there really is no contest.

Best of luck with which ever you choose.

Jack Sardina

 

[Well See]

42 Bertram

I had a 1981 42 Bertram for 8 yrs prior to my motoryacht. It was a great fishing and cruising boat. We regularly made 2-3 day trips to Desoto canyon in the gulf. And boy did she raise fish! My wife redid the interior and I think made the salon and galley comparable to the 45 hatt but the Hatt is superior in regard to staterooms and heads. The boat cruised @ 20 knots at 1950 with 435 692s, which by the way, had close to 3000 hrs SMOH and passed survey when I sold it. On the downside, engine room access was difficult,particularly out-board and the gen in the cockpit is a nightmare. I won't even mention the aluminum rubrail fastened with stainless bolts! Overall though it was quicker and more fuel efficient than my buddy's 45 Hatt. If I were going fishng again I would go with the Bertram again for the money{less}.

 

[George]

Hatt vs. Bert

Solendari,
I repowered with Cat C-12's and you should be able to see my posting back in May of this year. @ 1900 I'm burning around 45-47 GPH which is close to the same consumption of the 6V92 @ 2050. Naturally my MPG is much better because of the speed, but it will take me a long time to rationalize the pay back. If your seriously considering, drop another line on here and I can fill you in on the details. I do believe you should be able to negotiate one of these 45s well south of $200K. In my mind, if your in this for a long time, buy cheap as you can and rehab this classic to new and your still ahead of purchasing any comparable 1998 boat or newer for less. About Genesis comments, he is king on the 6V92's. I have yet to read any of his comments which I disagree with, only to add, all engines, new or old need a lot of care and maintenance. When thinking about that Bert, it is difficult to move around which may compromise your willingness to do exactly what is needed. Hatteras is slightly friendlier. Again good luck with your decision.

 

[Genesis]

Depends

"Well south" of 200k is going to be some kind of trouble - probably engine trouble.

That's ok, if you want to repower. Indeed, its what you WANT TO FIND if you want to repower, because there's no point in paying for good machinery you're going to tear out, and while you'll get SOMETHING for the take-outs, its not the way to go.

You're way ahead of the game if you're going to do this sort of thing (repower) as a plan to find the boat that has blown up engines and get the seller to sell to you BEFORE he rebuilds them. That's difficult to do, because sellers KNOW that blown motors will whack $30k off the price of the boat in the bat of an eye, but they can get "joe and jim's rebuilds" to do cylinder kits (and nothing else) for about $10k - which means they POCKET $20k by doing it "on the cheap". Of course you then get the headaches and probably the wallet-ache that comes from that - the seller simply doesn't disclose anything, the survey comes up ok, but what wasn't done.... hmmmm... you don't know, do you?

The other "well south of 200k" deal you'll find on a mid-80s 45C is the boat that is part of a bankruptcy or some other situation (e.g. estate sale - the old sap who owned her kicked over from a heart attack and his widow has no interest in the boat)

The problem with those is that neglect is usually rampant through the systems, from electronics to the hull to bottom paint to running gear to the engines. Why? Because those situations don't arise overnight, and the maintenance budget (either in time, money or both) usually evaporates long before the final song is sung on the underlying problem.

If you want a 45C with 6V92s in good shape, expect the price to be right near the 200k mark, perhaps even a bit more if everything is up to snuff (e.g. reasonably new water heater, fridge, entertainment, electronics on the bridge, etc - and of course a newer and well-running genset and properly-operating mains.) If you want a boat with blown motors, you might get in the mid to mid-upper 100s, PROVIDED you can get it before the owner rebuilds the engines.

If they still run but are just smoking like hell, that's the deal you want - you can get home on what you've got at low cruise (run it at 1100ish - you'll only make 9-10 knots, but that's real easy on the engines and running gear), plan the repower, and have at it. Completely BLOWN engines make for a bigger problem unless the boat is in your backyard - dealing with a yard on a repower job that's 500+ miles away can be done, but its not ideal - ideally you want to be around when the work is being done so you can watch it.

The nice thing about the 45Cs is that there are a lot of them. I can tell you where all the good and bad points are - as with all boats, it has some service hassles, but there are no really bad nightmares - just some relatively minor challenges.

For the 90th percentile, Hatteras thought through service access and did a pretty darn good job. Compare the service access to routine things with pretty much any other make in this size, and you'll see immediately what I'm talking about.

I won't own a boat I can't work on without killing myself - that leads to too many things that don't get done when they should, and THAT brings Mr. Big Bill calling on my wallet.

Hatt ain't perfect in that regard, but they didn't do bad with the design on these boats.

 

[Solanderi]

Marine / Diesel Surveyor

Genesis,

Thank you for your help. Can you recommend a boat and motor surveyor working in the Ft Lauderdale, Palm Beach area? If you prefer, my e mail is solanderi45@yahoo.com.

 

[PascalG]

suveryor

solanderi

last year I used a surveyor name Mark Hundley for my 53. he did a good job, I still havent' found any surprises he woudl have missed. his number is 305 758 0158, he's in maimi, but covers FTL and most likely PB

for engine, he recommendeded a guy in ft Lauderdale, but I don't have the survey handy. did a good job too... no surprises so far

pascal
miami, fl
70 53my

 

[Genesis]

The best surveyor I know of that handles that area...

... is Henry Pickersgill. He's actually out of the Tampa area but will come over there - he did for me. He's very good and in four years I found nothing in the hull and such that he missed. If it was on his punchlist, it needed attention.

Engine guys are more tricky. Kevin Beard is good, but he's "disappeared" - I tried to find him to recommend him to someone else about a year ago, and couldn't locate him. There's always Florida Detroit Diesel if they're Detroits. A good engine survey is going to cost you real money - far more than the hull survey.

Just make sure whoever surveys the engines DID NOT do any recent work on them, otherwise you know what kind of objectivity you're going to get.....

I recommend engine examination in several steps:

1. BEFORE you write an offer, you want a cold cranking test. No block heaters, battery starting power ONLY. Any assists to be off for at least 48 hours and the engines NOT run for the same 48 hours. I've posted here what that will tell you and how to evaluate it. Email me at "karl@denninger.net" with a phone number and I can go over it on the phone if you want.

2. IF this test passes, then I'd go ahead and write the offer, subject to the usual survey and sea trial. If you fail here, STOP and talk to the owner/broker representing the boat. You are going to insert a clause in your contract that if the engines fail survey you want the overhaul cost (figured at $2k/hole - you'll probably spend more, but that's ok - you'll know its done right) deducted from the purchase price with no guff or BS, and that "failed" is defined as ANY hole under minimum compression, any rings broken, any liner, piston or ring scoring, or anything else that leads the engine guy to recommend that one or more holes be reconditioned. If the seller will not agree to this, walk away - its 90% certain you're going to get that recommendation from the engine guy, and you're going to be out a couple of grand to get there. That can get expensive FAST if you shop several boats, so you want to know up front that if you're spending the money you have a reasonable seller on the other end of the deal. Realize that if you DO exercise this clause that you pretty much need to be otherwise happy with the boat - if the seller agreed to this you'll get it, but you're not likely to get one more dime in adjustements on the survey results. That's cool, provided you did your homework to start with.

3. Once you pass that hurdle, THEN you do the usual write-the-offer, survey/sea trial thing. How extensive you get on the engine survey determines the cost - let the engine guy tell you what you NEED. If the cold start passed then a compression test is PROBABLY not necessary, unless something bizarre shows up during the regular engine survey.

If you don't do it this way you're at least 50% likely to run into a guy who says "there's nothing wrong with those darn engines!" when you present him the survey report, or who will not give you more than $5-6k in discount off the asking price. He knows you have $2k in sunk costs in the boat, and could end up doing it three or four times before you buy. Short answer is that the seller has you bent over in this situation, and you have no recourse other than to take his (grossly insufficient) offer or walk away disgusted having eaten the costs.

90% of the time a cold start test will tell you if there's a serious problem that is likely to blow up the deal, and that costs you nothing. If you're in that situation and the seller hasn't told you UP FRONT that the engines are screwed up, its a good bet that he's going to be less-than-reasonable.