Contender hulls aren't weak by any measure. They're generally a Deep V design with slight taper towards rear, hard chines. Basically, they took the offshore racing hull designs, fitted them with center consoles and outboard brackets, and made them into fishing platforms that were faster, and more maneuverable than say... a Bertram or Cheoy Lee. This boat design is popular for coastal island fishing... a little deep for fishing shallow-water flats, but they'll get in there in a high tide, and with outboard power, get out of there without damage.
Typically, hulls with rotten transoms are that way, because someone installed the outboard or inboard-outboard incorrectly- they drilled holes to mount the transom clamp or I/O gimbal housing, and did NOT coat the bare transom wood with epoxy or seal the holes form both ends.
If this Contender has a transom bracket, it's probably a factory-installed bracket, and the motor is affixed to the transom bracket, rather than the transom... so there's little concern that the hull's transom sandwich has been saturated.
As others mentioned, the engine is a little on the heavy side for it's power rating, but it's probably appropriately sized for the hull. If it's early enough to be a 'true' premix two-stroke, it will be less maintenance-intensive than an oil-injected unit of later vintage. Evinrude/Johnson (OMC) was sold off to Bombardier some years ago as a result of US EPA emissions policy banning the manufacture of certain types of engines... by selling it off to a Canadian company, it was partially exempted (another dumb government policy gone wrong)... but they're somewhat orphaned as a result. Aftermarket parts support still exists for some of it... but fortunately, it's an outboard- you can unbolt an engine, bolt another on in about an hour.
Get more info on the hull and engine, get pictures... and look at the local market- they may be offering you a good deal.
My name is Dave, and I own six boats... no... seven... most of them have MerCruiser I/O power... but I've had Evinrude, Johnson, Mercury... Elgin... Clinton... worked on and used Scott-Atwater, Chrysler... yeah, I've got a Mercury 2-stroke inline six 'tower of power' on a stand in the barn... alongside an Evinrude 4-cyl electric-shift... and I used to have a Mark 75H that fortunately, I never had a hull worthy of...
If the boat they're offering has good up-to-date paperwork, and the transom is sound... it'd be worth considering... especially if the trailer is roadworthy.
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Ted J wrote:
