Who Started Making the Bertram 31 Moppie Again
Owner Hugo Peel details the painstaking, three-year restoration of the world'south terminal remaining Bertram 31 Competition Special, Thunderstreak
This is the story of Thunderstreak, the tardily Tommy Sopwith's 1963 Bertram 31 Competition Special, and its three-yr restoration. It's also a story of defended powerboat people and skilled marine engineers with the determination to succeed against all the odds.
My tale, however, starts on August Bank Holiday 1963. To this then thirteen-year-sometime, that meant one thing: information technology was the Daily Express Cowes-Torquay powerboat race weekend. Spectating at this new and exciting sport had been getting more than dramatic every year. Summit speeds had reached 50mph. Engines had got bigger. And louder. Striking, purpose-built raceboats had begun to fill the entry lists – many from the U.s.a. and carrying the Bertram brand.
The sight of 50 starters lapping the Isle of Wight at total-conversation then powering on to Torquay was unforgettable. As the now stretched-out armada blasted past Cowes for the second time, the visceral bellow of Thunderstreak'due south 7-litre Holman-Moody tuned Ford race-engines as it porpoised past trailing a rooster-tail backside it fabricated a lasting impression on my teenage mind. It was love at commencement sight: or perchance love at beginning sound.
Thunderstreak was discovered past Robin Ward as a dilapidated houseboat
Never, for one moment, did I dream that one twenty-four hours I would own her. Fast forward to late summer 2017 and across the River Medina I detected the familiar rumble of only such a pair of V8s. It turned out to exist Thunderstreak, sporting her H400 race number.
Then in the ownership of Robin Ward, who discovered her in 2014 equally a rotting houseboat in an East London marina, he had completed an initial restoration and raced her with mixed results in 2015 and 2016. It took 1 chat, one test run, and one offering to become the owner of this historic vessel. Now the hard graft would brainstorm.
Labours of Hercules
The Bertram came ashore at Clarence Thou, East Cowes looking rather the worse for wear: weedy bottom, asthmatic engines, scruffy internals, corroded ancillaries, tired sterngear, dated electronics – you get the picture. Solent Marine Services (SMS), led by partners Tristan Ormiston and Jim Willcock, agreed to accept on the challenge. With the help of Peter Hewitt, my skipper and restoration projection director, we scheduled a program of works over the wintertime of 2017 with the aim to race again in 2018.
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First, out came H400's engines. They were in a horrible state – burnt-out cylinder heads and ill-seated valves, scored bores and piston-tops, worn engine blocks with chock-full water galleries. We also extracted the original Velvet-Bulldoze gearboxes and Precision-Glide Five-drives. The engines were shipped off to Saunders Engineering at Cadnam, where several of Tommy'due south former race engineers still work, for balancing and assessment.
The gearboxes and 5-drives went to Mike Bellamy's Lancing Marine to be assessed. Meanwhile SMS set to work on the rudders, steering gear, P-brackets, hydraulic trims tabs, stern glands and shafts, all of which needed overhauling or replacing. Meanwhile, the yard bundled for the hull and topsides to be given an Awlgrip finish, in Tommy Sopwith's Try Team colours of dark bluish, crimson and white, for which he had given me his kind permission.
Limited Signs Ltd of Newport provided new gunkhole graphics, race numbers and Union flags – again sanctioned past Tommy. For clarity, the 'H' prefix indicates the course in which she will race – namely, 'Historic', not 'Hugo' equally some wit suggested. All the original brass hull outlets and seacocks were replaced past new or stainless ones. New water-cooled sternglands, bilge and fuel pumps, wiring, switchgear, dashboards, and loftier-capacity filters were plumbed in. And any doubtable one-time GRP repairs were hacked back and re-glassed.
The engine bay was a mishmash of rotten timbers and hidden repairs that was only fully revealed once the engines were removed
At the aforementioned time, SMS went shopping. In Yorkshire, they traced a spare Ford V8 engine from a campervan. From America, they ordered sets of new pistons, piston rings, gudgeon pins, con-rods and large-ends, hydraulic rockers, cylinder sleeves, four shiny rocker covers, plus belts, pulleys, filters, pumps, exhaust headers, hoses, clips, wiring and electronics. This extensive list was tedious to materialise and meant that the rebuild wasn't finished in time for the 2018 Cowes-Torquay-Cowes race. Nonetheless, the engines eventually came back from dyno-testing at Bicester that November and all was set for the new H400'due south maiden voyage.
All went well correct up until the point when one of her immaculately restored engines blew. An investigation suggested that at some stage (we don't know when) its internals had been run dry and was now beyond economic repair.
Back to square one
The SMS team, Peter Hewitt and I all went home for Christmas securely despondent. Early in the New Twelvemonth of 2019, I chosen a team coming together and laid out the three options open up to us: junk the whole project; rebuild the Ford engines again or replace the existing motors with state-of-the-art new ones, maybe with racing sterndrives in place of the original shafts.
The Holman-Moody race-tuned 7-litre Ford V8s were stripped and rebuilt just for disaster to strike on her maiden voyage
This third option, while not fully embracing the restoration purist'due south approach, opened upwardly 3 further choices. The offset was to install Volvo-Penta's six.2-litre V8 petrol engines with Duo-prop sterndrives. This would give 430hp each side and the best power-to-weight ratio. But the absence of through-transom exhausts removed the critical sound element. I mean, who wants a silent AC Cobra?
The 2nd was to utilize Swaymar Marine's small-block race-tuned half-dozen.5-litre V8 Chevrolets but employing the original gearboxes and V-drives. Although boasting race pistons, rings and big ends, and a fancy 'bunch of bananas' stainless exhaust system from Australia, these beautiful lightweight units simply came with carburettors, not the more efficient fuel-injection system. And no proper warranty package.
The 3rd option was the latest fuel-injected 8.2-litre Mercruiser engines with Bravo X sterndrives. In supercharged full US race-tune, these are capable of 1,650hp but nosotros were looking at the under-stressed naturally aspirated 435hp models. While they would provide skilful reliability, at 589kg each they carried a 150kg weight penalty per unit over the Volvos. But they had straight-through exhausts and comprehensive warranties on the engine, leg and ancillaries. The downside was that H400's transom and half her internals would have to be rebuilt to adapt the sterndrive legs afterwards 55 years of shafts and V-drives.
Every bit she looked after her initial restoration by Robin Ward in 2015
Afterwards much debate we opted for the latter and with the threat of disembowelment for failure hanging over the team, a new spirit of optimism pervaded the yard! I drew upwards a sensible schedule and ordered the Mercurys.
The rebuild begins
The rebuild would be a major job and needed professional person input from a naval architect. And then I contacted H400's original designers, Ray Hunt Design, for advice and enlisted the Lymington-based raceboat designer Adam Younger to measure up the stern one-half of H400 and pen the necessary structures to carry our bigger, heavier engines. With all this to hand (and my chequebook!) the SMS team set to work.
SMS engineering managing director Jim Willcock left me in no doubt about the challenges we faced: "With almost 1,000hp to manage, the mechanical stresses are huge and racing multiplies these 100-fold. Nosotros measured everything several dozen times; fix up our templates with string and wooden dummies, took a deep breath and cut open the transom."
Measuring up one of the new Mercruiser 8.2-litre V8s to run across where the sterndrives should sit
By now information technology was June 2019 and the C-T-C race was only three months away. H400'southward stern looked like a flop had hit information technology. The engines were delayed by customs and I was getting frantic. SMS went into overdrive. "Nosotros had already completely gutted the internals, by March," continues Willcock, "cutting dorsum old stringers and obsolete engine mounts, removing the original V-drive pads, sternglands, shafts and the onetime 900-litre fuel tank. Nosotros even discovered another fuel tank congenital into the hull!"
Tristan Ormiston, the throttle-man on swain C-T-C raceboat Mr Noisy, advised that the new design would give a much lower heart of gravity for racing, saying, "The trick is to get the engines equally low and as close to the centreline as possible without them actually touching and all the same enable admission to key parts where they 'kiss'."
SMS's challenge was to remodel the unabridged aft third of the boat to have the new engines and sterndrives. This entailed serious risks. The frighteningly sparse original GRP transom was stripped back and six old exhaust holes plugged. The plan was to create two new transom pads to acquit the Mercruiser drives and brackets, both of which had to be squared exactly.
Building out the reinforced transom to create a perfectly apartment mounting surface for the drives
SMS used traditional methods of cord, tape and ruler for the datum mark-up to establish the all-of import 'X-Line' – an imaginary line following the engine's crankshaft centre to the height of the sterndrive where its gearbox resides. These pads were fabricated upwardly from bonded layers of 10mm and 12mm marine ply held in position by layers of GRP.
With these pads in identify, SMS turned to the engine bay, which they reinforced with bonded layers of marine ply scarfed and glued circular the pads and then tied into the hull, topsides and deck. The transom also received 4 massive new knees, which extended forward to join the new bigger stringers, which also doubled equally engine beds.
These extended around a new 875-litre aluminium-alloy fuel tank to rejoin the original 1963 stingers roughly amidships. The transom then had to be rubbed down and coated with a hullo-epoxy primer and PeelPly to leave a smooth pre-painting surface for the final ii coats of Awlgrip Topcoat.
The two main stringers and engine bearers were extended around the fuel tank
It was a stressful July, as SMS plotted routes for the fuel lines, bilge pumps, hydraulic pipes, wiring looms, fire-suppression systems and steering tie-confined, forth with new scrutineering-proof bombardment boxes. High-capacity fuel filters and industrial extraction fans for the new engine box were also fitted to suck out petrol vapour from the bilges and reduce the risk of starting the engines with a bigger blindside than intended! It was all starting to come together merely time was moving on and the race was getting closer. As Peter Hewitt recalls, "Barrus commissioned the engines and breathed life into H400: Hugo breathed once more, too!"
In Baronial 2019, Thunderstreak was relaunched in her new 21st century iteration – a legend rekindled through state-of-the-art Mercruiser engines, race-propellers and competition sterndrives. She fired upward first time and in her sea trials off Gurnard, even with mismatched props, she topped 57mph.
Like many Bertrams, she rode nose-up so we returned to the chiliad to fit 350-400kg of anchor (builder'south sand and gravel) in the bows to residuum the weight of the new drivetrains. Give thanks heavens for B&Q! Frenzied last-minute jobs included assembling the kit required to race and on the day before race day Thunderstreak passed the official scrutineering procedure with flying colours.
H400's long-suffering owner Hugo Peel (left) shares a laugh with skipper Peter Hewitt
With Robin Ward equally race co-commuter, we took ane last examination run on the newly matched bigger props. Disaster! Off Newtown Creek, i engine stopped dead. We before long diagnosed fuel starvation merely not the cause of it. We spent the side by side four hours ripping up floorboards and stripping downwardly the fuel lines, filters and pumps to find the culprit.
Cypher. A total mystery. And for the second year running we had to withdraw from the race. H400 spent a long, lone night in the Majestic Yacht Squadron Haven. The whole team was devastated. Only later did nosotros observe the culprit, pea-sized blobs of silicone sealant lodged in the fuel erect.
Spirits rise
Come up the autumn, sea trials recommenced using new equipment, electronics and different props. Barrus had provided us with two 'pairs' of stainless steel race props for testing. These gave u.s.a. around 60mph merely nosotros were brusk of 350rpm on the port engine for reasons no one could fathom. With the props off, closer inspection revealed that while they showed correct and complementary part numbers, they were non a perfectly matched pair.
All sorted and ready to go with new racing sterndrives and almost 900hp of V8 musculus
The bract profiles, curves and cupping were all slightly different. So even so more new props were sent and fitted for further testing. A run from Bembridge to the Royal Motor Yacht Club in Poole to visit friends and MBY's editor for lunch took a mere 43 minutes during which Thunderstreak clocked 67.8mph. However, we were still short of a few hundred rpm – this time on both engines.
Over the winter SMS refined Thunderstreak even more than, fitting Lenco racing trim tabs to help level her ride and control lean in crosswinds and installing seawater stainless steel showers over each sterndrive to cool the gearbox oil. Finally, a new stainless steel tie-bar and couplings linked both drives, to keep them pointing in the right direction. Thunderstreak now looked, collection, handled and sounded similar a proper raceboat.
Peter Hewitt and SMS also moved the captain and navigator'due south stations closer to the centreline and fitted clusters of engine-monitoring dials aslope new Raymarine Axiom screens (the old chartplotter crashed at speeds above 45mph). A clever new throttle-pod on its own stainless pedestal meant the gear and throttle levers now fell perfectly to hand, while new racing bolsters were designed and delivered by skipper Hewitt to the upholsterers in Poole.
The revised captain station with Peter Hewitt's old racing wheel and new nav gear
Merely the onetime Destroyer-blazon wheel now looked and felt a little out of place so in an act of extraordinary generosity Peter raided his own trophy cabinet to present me with his old leather and stainless steel steering wheel. It fitted perfectly.
By at present the coronavirus pandemic started to make its ugly presence felt. The restoration team had ane small tidal window to launch and recover Thunderstreak, allowing my film crew to shoot some footage during bounding main trials before the lockdown came into effect.
Information technology has been a long and often frustrating journey transforming Tommy Sopwith'due south 1963 raceboat back into a useable and faster 2020 contender only the journeying has been worth it. The enthusiasm and sheer hard piece of work from the whole restoration team has been a privilege to witness.
The long rebuild proves worth the wait as H400 takes to the Solent once over again for her outset pre-lockdown sea trials
The sight and sound of this 57-year-one-time powerboat has thrilled all who've encountered her. Laura Levi, who runs the British Powerboat Racing Club quipped recently: "We all know when Thunderstreak is heading out. In fact, the whole of Cowes does! But we have to salute you and your dedication to bring back this historic raceboat."
Lord Beaverbrook, the son of Sir Max Aitken and close friend of Tommy Sopwith, also made contact in April 2019 to say that equally a teenager he had "played" on Thunderstreak back in September 1963, adding: "Of the vii or viii 'Competition Special' 31s built by Dick Bertram, Thunderstreak is probably the last still adrift and working today.
'Her known contemporaries – Surfrider, Rum Runner, Blue Moppie and Lucky Moppie – accept long since disappeared or been left to rot in some mud booth. Yous are now the custodian of the legend."
I think she's worth information technology, don't you?
Thunderstreak's History
by Mike James
Tommy Sopwith's Thunderstreak was originally meant to exist a new Bertram 38 from the eponymous Florida yard. However, this new 38 was written off when it was dropped on the dockside while being loaded for shipping to the UK. Dick Bertram agreed to replace it with 1 of his new Bertram Contest 31s, a limited run of 7 or eight specially built race hulls beefed up for offshore racing.
Her sister ships included Surfrider (Charles & Jimmy Gardner), Rum Runner (Harold Abbott/USA), Blue Moppie (Keith Schellenberg) and Lucky Moppie (Dick Bertram/Usa) but equally far as nosotros know, Thunderstreak is now the simply one nevertheless in apply today.
Thunderstreak raced in the famous Cowes-Torquay-Cowes event on four occasions nether Sopwith'southward race number 400. In the 1963 race she was leading the 49 other entrants across Lyme Bay when ane of her Ford Holman V8s failed. In 1965, Sopwith entered her over again with detuned Fords for greater reliability but this time a shaft failed.
The old 5-drive shafts, rudders and trim tabs before the conversion to sterndrives began
Keith Schellenberg, who had previously been racing another Bertram Competition 31, Blue Moppie, bought Thunderstreak in time for the 1966 race. Under his race number 995, the Holman-Moody Fords were uprated to 700hp. Again she retired with engine problems.
Subsequently a year's absence from the race circuit, Thunderstreak 995 was acquired past Robert Doxford for the 1969 BP Round Uk marathon and the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes. She was refitted at Whitehalls Shipyard with an ugly cabin and a revised high driving position and re-engined with two 175hp Perkins diesels, but retired from both races. Fable has it that, instead of arriving in Falmouth as planned, Doxford concluded up in the Scillies – mayhap due to the number of empty beer cans plant beside the compass!
She and so faded into obscurity for three decades until discovered, desperately deteriorated, in an East London marina as a houseboat. Acquired by Robin Ward in October 2014 afterward a tip-off by Archetype Offshore Powerboat Club'south Mike James, the 'sheds' rapidly disappeared under his chainsaw.
Re-powered with period seven-litre Fords from a Us powerboat, Thunderstreak returned to her racing state with a replica aerodynamic cabin fatigued by publisher and artist Charles Lawrence, competing in the 2015 C-T-C. In the following year's infamously stormy 2016 race, she was 1 of merely five boats to make it dorsum to the Solent, where she struck an underwater object in sight of the finishing line and was beached on Yarmouth harbour slipway to prevent her from sinking.
First published in the September 2020 outcome of Motor Boat & Yachting.
Source: https://www.mby.com/features/wreck-racer-thunderstreak-restoration-111333
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