Century Club: Sean Martin

An early morning catch and release session out on the bay

I've never counted any of the 10 allowed "work-on-your-boat" days before (and I surely work on my boats more than ten days a year), but I'm pretty stoked about this project and wanted to share.  I'm repowering this classic Bertram with twin outboards from twin Mercruiser I/O's. The original I/O's were only 145hp each and the new Suzuki's are 200 hp each, so I figured some serious reinforcement was in order.  I cut all the old wood out of the transom because I figured it would be rotten as the boat is 60 years old.  Turns out it really wasn't! Itwas starting to get a little wet because it spent the last few years, but better safe than sorry. I found a few similar resto-mods of these vintage Bertrams online inclubing one on an episode of "Florida Dreamboats" They used an aluminum floatation bracket by Armstrong in Stuart Florida.  It seemed to work great on their hull, so I made a template and sent it down to Stuart.  Next step was to rebuild the transom to the thickness specified by Armstrong...2&1/2" So, I used two layers of 3/4" marine ply and a layer of 1/2" marine ply alternating with layers of woven fiberglass roving.  It took a few months to get the bracket, so I just kept adding another layer whenever I had some free time. Eventually I got the job finished, dry fit the bracket, drilled the bolt holes to mount it. Captain Eddy gave me a hand with the final install putting 4200 in the bolt holes above the waterline and 5200 in the holes below the waterline. Now on to the hydraulic steering, new fuel tanks, wiring and batteries!