'95 Hydrodyne all-fiberglass?

Did Hydrodyne move away from fiber-over-balsa and to 100% fiber in the early 90s like Correct Craft and others?

I currently own a '80 Ski Nautique that is in very good condition, but is fiber over balsa. I'm considering buying a '95 Comp XP. It would be a slam-dunk if I could confirm that the Hydrodyne is 100% fiberglass. I can't find anything about construction materials anywhere. Any help would be appreciated!

I'd also appreciate any thoughts or advice from those that have direct experience with both Correct Craft and Hydrodyne regarding wake characteristics, build quality, engine, etc. Both boats have the 351 Windsor...EFI in the Hydrodyne, carb in the Nautique. Thoughts on EFI for marine applications?

Thanks in advance,

Todd

 

Hi Todd, welcome to the forum.

The Hydrodyne has balsa. I think the beam is 90 inches with a shallow "V". The build quality of both is good.

If you say what type of skiing or boarding you are doing, the owners here can better answer your wake question. A google search will get you some comments on the wake.

I think both engines are good.

jim

 

If it's truly a 95 (straight horizontal stripes in the gel lines), the dyne should have the GT-40, which is arguably one of the best marine engines ever put in a boat. If it's a 94 (which has a different gel scheme - swoop down in the striping near the transom), it'd be the 351 Windsor Pro-Boss (w/Pro-tec ignition). The primary difference is the GT-40 is multi-port EFI, where-as the Pro-Boss is throttle-body injected. The potential concern with the Pro-Boss is if the Protec ignition fails (which they're known to do), coil packs are just about non-existent, so the engine would have to be retrofitted with a distributor and carb, which goes almost $1k in parts to do the swap. Performance is a about a wash though. For what it's worth, my Protec has been bullet proof so far, but I know a carb/distributor may be in my future.

Yes, there is wood in these boats, but I think I've only heard of one of the dyne inboards that had stringer issues (roughly 93-97 time frame) (but there were also a lot less made versus Nautique). Otherwise, they're built like a tank, and they'd be right on par with Nautiques of the time for build quality. Also the engine is mounted on an aluminum box bolted to the stringers, so any issues with the motor mounts are pretty much unheard of.

It's been a while since I've been behind a SN 2001, but I remember the slalom wake in particular wasn't all that friendly. I know they're pretty coveted in the wakeboard community for a budget boat, because they put out a pretty nice wakeboard wake with little weight for the price, but they're also tiny. Coming from your 80 SN, the first thing you'll notice in the Dyne is that it's just flat out a bigger boat - especially if you go with a grand sport (open bow) over the comp. The Dyne was AWSA rated, so is an excellent slalom boat for the age as well. The thing many don't know is that it's a very good wakeboard/foil boat, as the wake has a very nice shape to it, and the boat had more free-board than pretty much anything that age (short of a Supra Sunsport), so can take a lot of weight if that interests you. You can even surf it relatively easily, but you'd want to relocate the fuel vent before doing that so you don't put water in your gas. With the Acme prop on mine, we top out around 47/48 (and the prop's been repaired), so it's got more than enough if you're a footer. The only part of the wake I'm not fond of is at some line lengths and speeds, the table isn't very flat (has a double v-wake similar to the 90's ski nautiques) that can make my shoe skiing difficult (i.e. surface turns inside the wake) and can trap you a bit on barefoot deeps while trying to butt out into the curl, but adjusting the line length easily gets you to a spot that is flat/more manageble. Also, there isn't too much side spray, so boom work is pretty easy.

For me, the best thing about the dyne is the speed holding capabilities. Mine will hold any speed from my kids on the skimmer, to my wife on the swivel, to shoe skis, wake-board, slalom, and footing without the need for Perfect Pass or other speed control. Pretty much every other inboard (direct or v-drive) I've driven has had problems at some speed that's incredibly hard to hold where the hull is transitioning from plowing to planing (the dyne hits plane very quickly). For most boats, the problem speed is either swivel speed (11-14 range) or shoe-ski/wake-board speed (19-25 range), and the easy remedy is speed control. So far I haven't found a problem speed with any of our sports, so I haven't felt the need to drop another $1k+ on Perfect Pass (or similar). I might be biased, but I was working under a tight budget to get our boat, and I couldn't come up with a boat that beat it dollar for dollar. Resale will probably be the only hard part down the line, as most in the inboard world have either never heard of Hydrodyne or don't have any experience with them.

 

Jim and Tom,

Thanks for the replies. It's definitely a '95 Comp XP with the GT-40. Honestly the engine is what has me most intrigued about the boat, along with being 15 years newer than my '80 Nautique. Is the EFI on the GT-40 reliable?

Regarding boat usage, I'm a slalom skier. My wife seldom skies but is a double skier when she does. My kids are all double-skiers but the older ones will transition to slalom in the next year or so. I'd be shocked if they didn't move on to wakeboarding also. Although I'm pretty old school I will probably begin tinkering with wakeboarding myself.

 

While 95 was the first year for the GT-40, it is still a very reliable EFI system. It's also a relatively simple one too, so troubleshooting it and fixing it are generally pretty straight-forward affairs. Parts are also still easily available. Most problems you'd potentially find on that engine will be related to fuel (and likely ethanol in current fuel), and can be remedied by cleaning/maintaining the fuel system (new gas, filters, injector cleaning, etc.), and then further preventative maintenance. I don't hear too many instances of vapor lock from the GT-40's that was pretty prevalent in some of the Mercruisers and Indmars of the time.

You can also find lots of info/troubleshooting help with that engine over on planetnautique, as there are lots of those installed in nautiques over the years (they were installed up to ~2002/2003 if I recall correctly).

I really like the boat for slalom myself, but I'm fairly tolerant of wakes. Some of the other offerings of the day may have slightly better wakes, but not by much. I'm mostly a free-skier from the slalom stand-point, but have no problem skiing it through the course (can nail 15-off at 36 no problem - and that's usually under afternoon non-ideal conditions on public water with the whole family in the boat). If you guys do get into wakeboarding, do yourself a favor and at least get an extended pylon or even a tower. I personally like towers as they get a lot of my gear up off the floor with the racks and open up the back seat for use on the non-slalom stuff. They also make deep water starts for general/doubles skiing easier to learn.