I was also a previous Trojan owner. I had a 1985 13 Meter Express (which is now for sale again by the current owner through Brewer's in Mystic, CT). The boat was rock solid, however some of the systems left something to be desired. The pistons on my Boat Leveler trim tabs had to be replaced twice. That's four pistons (2 for each tab). The tabs were too small to keep the bow down at a small enough angle so that I could easily see over the bow. The hardtop that the previous owner was just a little to low for my 6' height when I needed to see over the bow when coming on plane.
The ride was nice and solid, but 6-71TIs with 450 HP just wasn't enough power to move that 16'3" beam through the water. It was a 20 knot boat, but that was at 2000 RPMs and I had just had one of them rebuilt and the previous owner had done a good job of having the other one rebuilt about 200 hours prior. The boat was completely cored and at the time, it looked good for an 18 year old boat.
I think I'd take a Bertram over a Trojan, but those Amish in Lancaster, PA really know how to make a boat. The International Series are good boats for new people getting into boating because of the vast size of their beams and the low cost to get into a boat because of low resale value. They just have to keep them forever because unless you find someone willing to trade like I did, you'll never get out of them.
