Found this boat while looking for dynes. It is a 1969 18 footer with the thick bottom. Transom is most likely bad. Fin is badly damaged because right where it sits on the trailer a cross member sits. The mounting looks solid for the fin though. It does not seem to be in horrible shape, but is definitely questionable. Would you buy it and how much would you pay for it?
Wait till markbano sees this. He will tell you to run for your life. If the transom is soaked water may have gotten into the core. A balsa filament is about 30 inches long and in that boat they run parallel to the bottom. The water can travel. I'm sure you know how to tap on the bottom for dead spots. If the core has water in it the boat is worth little or nothing unless you plan to do the core repair your self. I think they are cool boats because they are different. I think I would need dart board to establish the worth. jim
I like it. Check to see that the hull is not sagging where it sits on the rollers/bunks. That is also a good way to tell if the core is rotted. Also, look for areas of glass on the bottom that bow outward from the plane of the hull, as this indicates that the bottom of the hull shell is delaminating from the balsa - another sure sign of a rotted core. If the core is rotted, it is not worth repairing. The transom is obviously no good. So at least the rear part of the deck needs to be cut and removed to replace it. At that point, you'll get a good look at the balso core at the back of the boat. You'd need to replace that rear floor areas as well. Check under the gunwales to see if the wood that supports them is dry rotted. If so, you may need to remove the entire deck. This is mostly just an issue of hours of work - no so much expense. Rub rail you can get from wefco Rubber = part No. 187-1. The trailer does not seem right for the boat. The hull is not properly supported. I'd check that too. As it sits I'd offer $300 for it but would probably pay $400 or $500 if necessary to get it (assuming the hull is essentially sound). Just my gut feeling. I paid $2,500 for my '73 but it had a good working 1983 Merc. 150 on it that I later sold for $600 on ebay. Thus I netted at $1,900 - too much and I knew it but I didn't intend to let the boat get away because the hull was in excellent shape, transom and floor notwithstanding. I like the boats that were never twin rigged. This one looks like it has only been rigged with a single, although you'd have to look closer to be sure. Some of the boats that were twin rigged ended up with some stress damage on the hulls where the back of the hull meets the bottom because the transoms were not replaced quickly enough when they rotted and the back-and-forth with all that weight would damage the hull. I don't see any sign of that problem in this boat from the pictures. Good luck.
Our ski team had a boat that looked similar to this one but did not have that square platform under the carpet under the pylon. Did certain years have that platform in the floor? How many years did hydrodyne make this particular shape boat? I want to say our boat was a 76.
If your ski team boat was a '76 then it had the second floor on raised stringers, so the entire floor would be flat up to where the driver's feet rest, which then goes back down to the hull. I believe that it was 1970 or 1971 when these boats went from the single core floor to the raised floor. I'm not sure about the exact year. The newer boats had the raised floor, which would allow for the insertion of flotation foam between the floor and the hull and would protect the actual hull core from penetration by screws and bolts used to secure seats, etc. I have never seen a boat with the original, single floor that has that raised platform so my assumption was that someone built that later - however I could be wrong. Not all of these boats left the manufacturer exactly the same. In fact some of them were built as custom builds so they can vary a bit. For example, one boat used to pull gliders had a second throttle control for the spotter. I believe another Hydrodyne was built for a racer with two I/O engines in it. So you never know what you'll find out there when it comes to Hydrodynes. That history is part of what makes these boats so interesting.
