Dear Bertram Insider,
After traveling back and forth regularly to visit our new 35 under construction, I’ve come to realize that in New England some serious battle lines are drawn over the option between butter or mayo on a lobster roll. I admit I decided to take the diplomatic route and put mayo on one end and butter on the other.
Had to make some less glamorous choices on the 35 and boy have we had plenty…..
….round drain holes, elongated drain holes; 1-inch pipe, 1 ¼-inch pipe, ¼ inch radius, ½-inch radius….and please don’t get Susan Davids started on what choice of color really is Bertram Blue.
And if you’ve read enough of my emails, you know we made a choice to go all out on tooling (fancy word for molds, by the way). Well it’s an expensive endeavor, but look at the result in the picture of the cabin liner after it was installed.
Many of the choices we’ve made have come from our interaction with you, our Bertram enthusiasts. Although please don’t be offended if we appear as if we’re not listening everybody! This week alone I received requests to make it bigger (FYI we have started development of the 58), err, make it smaller, make it faster, but speed doesn’t matter, and make my wife an interior she’ll love, and oh, stop making boats that are all about the interior.
Homer Simpson had the opportunity from a long lost brother to design his own car….you can imagine how that ends. I lose sleep thinking if all these options were left to me that this boat might be like Homer’s car. Thank goodness Susan put together a team dedicated to not only listening to our customers, but applying their deep boatbuilding experience to ensure anything we added is proven and will follow our mission of building a tough, reliable, boat. And I’m fairly confident that all of these aforementioned opposing voices will appreciate one standard feature—a darn nice ride.
We might just squeeze you in if you would still like to take a peek at the boats late next week. Can’t guarantee the weather in Maine in Spring, nor can I show you a complete boat, but you will get to see how all these choices are coming together to make a great boat from the keel up.
Give us a shout at marketing@bertram.com if you would still like to join us. We’d love to see you.
Oh, and for the record, the best bite of that lobster roll was in the middle—right where the mayo and the butter mix together.…the one with the mutter.
Sincerely,
Capt. Tommy Thompson
Product Development Manager