At year end I believe I was at just about 300 hours. I list the specs on the boat at the end of the review as well as purchasing information.
Overall I'd give the boat a 9 out of 10 with the deductions mainly being layout related and other areas that don't effect the function of the boat as much as they do the upkeep of the boat.
It was an enjoyable summer after the initial problems were ironed out, not problem free of course, but nothing that kept me off the water which is all any of us can ask for I think.
Cockpit Design, Layout Etc:
The boat is incredibly easy to operate. I can't imagine that there is a more comfortable leaning post on the market. On a rough day the seats flip up to become a full fledged leaning post that helps take the shock off the body. At the base of the console Hydrasport notched out an area for the feet that prevents one from having to stand duck footed at the helm. I found this to be of most use on a calm day while sitting...it made piloting the boat about as comfortable as sitting in a nice recliner. One minor annoyance, Hydrasport should install a latch for the retractable metal footrest. Without the latch you'll hear it slam down on the highway within a few minutes, and on a rough day it tends to want to bounce into the calf area. It's light, no big deal but easily fixed with some type of a latch. I had the Yamaha Fuel Management Gauge added after purchasing it from SIM. Initially the Yamaha gauges seemed goofy, I was constantly resetting the clock and kept losing other information from the meters. Turns out they were wired wrong from the factory, as was the Clarion in dash radio. Once the key was in the off position no juice was getting to either unit to keep stuff in memory. Overall I thought the Yamaha Gauges to be excellent, and the Fuel Management gauge is a must. Everything else was excellent. I stuck with the stock Raymarine radio, worked great, great reception, no problems. The Clarion in dash I had to replace and was later reimbursed by Hydrasport under warranty. It was installed without the rubber gasket sealing out water. It no longer matters to me who did it or didn't do it, the fact is I fixed it in 10 minutes on my dime, and Hydrasport took care of it. They didn't have to pay for the warranty labor, and I got the radio fixed in 1 day rather than a week or three. All the other controls on the dash were excellent, one of the switches did lose it's rubber seal but that was also quickly replaced at 40 hours and never happened again. A couple of suggestions for Hydrasport; install the same red LED indicator you use on the bilge pumps on both the fresh water washdown, and raw water washdown. I did find a couple of times I hit these switches by mistake somehow (or a passenger did) and ended up hearing the motor outside at night still churning. No damage was done, but it's a simple addition to complete an otherwise nice package. For the price I see no reason why they shouldn't install LED lights on all the pump related gauges. The cup holders are fine, if you have friends that like long necks, or you drink from large Pepsi or water bottles they do not fit. The dry storage in the console has no rubber gasket from the factory and therefore is not watertight. I added the lip seal at year end for $1....would recommend this improvement to all. The overhead electronics box was semi useless to me, others with the same boat did use it to house optional electronics. For a few dollars Hydrasport could add a few bolts and a mesh net like Nissan and others do in their car trunks to keep things from bouncing all over the place. I also wish they shipped the boat with a fire extinguisher mounted as it's a chore to find a convenient location after the fact. OVERALL....everything held up very well at the console. On the inside I had the full toilet. No problems at all, worked flawlessly although I may add a fan next year. The layout inside the console is incredible. I went up a notch to Type 31AGMs which are easily accomodated. Again very minor suggestion, for a few bucks Hydrasport could easily install coat hangers. None of these suggestions detract from the boat but IMO would be killer features and take it to the next level.
Inner Liner and Deck:
Not bad. I do have a few areas of non-skid that divoted a little. Generall it's just one of the non-skid notches that popped. For now I patched it with 4200, probably at the end of next season if more than the 2 or 3 let loose I'll have them do some warranty work. I also wonder if the notches could have been from tackle/tools being dropped. Overall I found the non-skid to be excellent, the only minor issue I had and it's the result of being near the water was the prevalance of mold. This was easily removed, but a PITA. The front storage compartments are not dry, at least not on my boat. It appears water pushes back in through the drains and the supplied rubber plugs pop right out at speed. I did buy the crank in type at year end and that kept water from backflowing. I'd like to see Hydrasport add macerators to the front compartments and lose the slight divot at the drain base that never dries. The storage space is awesome though. The front anchor locker is my only real gripe. It's open to rain from above through a hand hold, and at least on my boat holds 2-3" of water at all times. Which means your anchor line stinks, your anchor chain rusts, and water sits constantly on the fiberglass. Even running a rubber seal won't be enough as the hand hold is large enough that water would still pour in. I also had a hard time finding an anchor that fit without rattling to high heaven. The 24 and over sized anchor were too long, anything under I found had a hard time holding bottom. I ended up buying a bigger anchor and sawsall'ing it down an inch on either side, and notching out a small area so the anchor sits where it should. I then added the cheap pipe insulation to the mix to prevent rattling. If you find your anchor rattling, the cheap pipe insulation at Home Depot works great and costs almost nothing. I cut two 1" pieces and used a small piece of duct tape to hold it in the groove where the anchor sat...no more noise. There is another under deck storage area just forward of the front seat. This stayed dry for me no problems. I kept very little in there though as the water tank is in there, as is the macerator for the toilet. I did not want anything to bounce around and damage either of those units. I'm having a mesh cage installed over the winter to protect the forward area so that next fall I can store stuff under deck safely. Nice, large area though. Finally up front we have the under seat cooler which is a pretty standard item and worked as it should. One minor suggestion, install a kick stand like you see for a car hood on the bottom of the seat so it can be left open after use, otherwise it builds up mold. I did this and have had no problems since.
Towards the rear of the boat the storage consists of in-leaning post wet storage which I used primarily for trash bags etc, under gunnel rod storage which was adequate, an Igloo cooler and then rear compartments that include the sink and livewell. My fresh water washdown doesn't reach the sink and I was told that's normal, so I used the sink for seaworm storage which worked out great. OVERALL there is more storage than most need, I just wish it was slightly more organized rather than giant open spaces.
FISHABILITY: Very good to excellent. I'm not a fan of the euro-transom though. It's a lot of lost space aft of the livewell. My buddy has a 21' boat that has considerably more room than my 24 aft of the leaning post. It's not a problem, especially if you keep things stowed when fishing, but it's pretty much impossible to have two people casting in the rear of the boat as one will come in contact with the rocket launchers etc. The front has enough room almost for two casting without trouble. I found myself up on the anchor locker fishing a lot of days. I'm a huge fan of the recessed hand rails and bolster cushions. One minor issue with the livewell, eels love the water outlets. I'm not sure if a mesh grate can be installed to prevent the buggers from ending up way up in the hose. Generally they flush out on their own, but if you don't get them all you'll know after a few days in the sun. The livewell could use a slightly larger/faster drain but the existing unit is adequate. No splashover like you see on some boats, this system is excellent. One annoyance intially was the boats tendency to turn broadside to the wind making for a cork like drift through seas, up down, up down. I was going to invest in a drift sock before an old timer told me to go buy a $7 cat litter bucket at 2 or 3 gallons square. Sure enough, the $7 bucket of Fresh Step with two holes knocked out, 20' of nylon braid and I was good to go. I did notice an immediate increase in bass being caught while trolling as it knocked my troll speed down .5. I didn't like the idea of having the tie off far astern, so I used the aft port pop up cleat. This made it about a 10 second process for me to quickly retrieve the bucket and leave it on the rear splashwell. Amazingly with this cheap $10 solution the boat drifts stern to wave now. This made drift fishing in a wind a lot more fun
Trolling was great, the 250 HPDI averaged about 2.5 pre-bucket, would get down to about 2 mph with the bucket and lower if I turned nose to wind or current. I found the rod holders to be well placed across the board. One nice feature for shorter folk is the stepup including on the rear of the leaning post that allows one to get the rods out of the rocket launchers. My buddies 21' has them up so high one of our fishing buddies cannot reach them. Small things that Hydrasport thought out well. One word of warning for you, if you use the rear center transom rod holder be careful when pulling up the motor...it can and will scratch the cowling if the reel is facing to the rear.
The moment some have been waiting for, the 250 Yamaha HPDI:
At 3 hours I thought "what a nice motor". At 13 hours I thought "what a loud, rough, smelly motor" and by 23 hours it was "what a piece of sh**". Well, the story has already been told previously but I quickly realized I had two choices. Give in to the opinion that the motor was the problem and that I should have bought brand X, or find a solution. The purchasing dealer didn't appear to have or be willing to provide a solution, so I turned to all of you at THT. The first course of action was a plug replacement which bought me another 10 hours of use before they too fouled. By now it's early to mid June and I've killed 2-3 weeks of prime season not using the boat. You all know how it goes, I didn't trust it to get me home and therefore unless the weather was PERFECT I had a reason to do something else. I kept at it reading the comments here and had the oil rod adjusted. It was well off the recommended adjustment. This did provide immediate improvement but after meeting up with Riptide one morning in early July and seeing his 250 Ficht it was clear something still wasn't right with mine. Even accounting for the Ficht using superior technology at low RPMs...the HPDI was a dog. The boat ended up down at Ocean House Marina in Charlestown Rhode Island. They only sell and service Yamaha's and have the honor of being Hydrasports #1 in customer service so I figured it was worth a shot. I had the boat back in under two weeks and put well over 250 hours on it since without a whisper of trouble. In a nutshell, I now have two cables running back from the motor that charge the batteries seperately. The batteries were also rewired to have all electronics on battery 2, and all engine related electronics on battery 1. A second battery switch was installed that allowed me to kill power to just the electronics (line 2 essentially) and of course I could still use them both in a pinch to kick over the motor. By year end the Yamaha motor logs showed no fluctuations in pump pressure, voltage or anything else like I had pre-fix. I did replace the pressure sensor which seemed to be slow updated (air pressure sensor). I don't believe now this is a major component to a well running motor, frankly I think it's marketing BS...but it did make a slight, but noticeable difference. One comment I saw was the HPDI's don't do well in seas, well up here seas usually mean low or very high pressures and it was at those points the air pressure gauge seemed to "stick" at the old, middle of the road reading. With the new guage it did adjust more rapidly, and was always semi-accurate even in storm or high pressure situations. It's probably a minor difference in oil and fuel injection, but I think it only helped. Regarding the spark plugs, I found that installing them with the electrodes at 12 and 6 provided superior cleaning of the plug versus any other position. MOST times this was right around the spec torgue. I gapped mine at 1.52-1.55 at year end which seemed to provide the best results. At 1.6 I found it smoke slightly more and seemed to dirty plugs faster which means to me unburnt fuel. I did switch to Penzoil 100% Synthetic and will not go back to anything else. #1, it's biodegradable and better for the environment, #2, the motor was much smoother without it. There was virtually no smoke, ever after the first 10 hours on synthetic. The plugs never even needed to be cleaned after the switch. Consider that the Ficht allows you to adjust down the mix when using synthetic because of its superior protection, Yamaha does not...so IMO all you are doing in using it is providing MORE protection than is ever needed. I pretty much dumped the fuel additive Ring Free. I found the motor was rougher with it and noticed no other tangible benefit. Inserting a mechanics mirror into the cylinder shows them to be very clean, using ring free didn't change that but it did set me back another $15
I did start using 93 octane exclusively, and this was on the recommendation of Ocean House. They were right, that made a huge difference up here due to oxygenates. Your mileage may vary. Okay, motor performance? EXCELLENT. The thing moves out pretty well, I could top the boat out at 48 at year end with a light load and favorable conditions. Realistic, everyday top speed was 44-46. Cruise was a comfortable 10-12 GPH at 30 mph. Trolling is not this motors strong point, as VectorFisher noted the boat still chugs through 1.5 GPH at troll....much higher than the FICHT. He also noted the HPDI was quieter though. The hole shot was great with the standard 3 blade, I did not upgrade. Routine service during the year I did myself. This included inspecting plugs every 40 hours or so, changing the lower unit oil every 50 hours and there too I switched to the synthetic. I did note, as did my passengers and immediate drop in the "clunk" noise when shifting gears. This is presumably because synthetics have better grip on the metal parts. To put it in perspective the 2nd lube change I did at about 75 hours post the dealer doing it. The little metal plug was full of particles at about hour 175. After going to synthetic it was clean the rest of the year...totally devoid of particles. I replaced nothing else all summer. At year end I had the dealer replace the water pump, change the lower unit oil, all the filters, the themostats, all the zincs and check the TPS etc. I have no problem with the motor, I'd buy it again if I was going to buy a 2 stroke (which I'll probably never do again for economy, oil reasons). Don't for a minute let your dealer tell you "it's normal" for this motor to smoke, run rough etc. It shouldn't, if it does they didn't install it properly and take it back.
Exterior of Hull:
Fine, I did have some damage, it's been discussed here before. It was fixed by Ocean House and looks perfect to this day. All I know is at 300 hours the boat doesn't have a scratch, I know I didn't do the damage that required a 10' section of hull to be redone. It held fine, no problems. I kept a coat of 3M paste on the yellow portion of the hull and it held up well. Overall I'm thrilled with the finish, it's a great looking boat.
Access, Interior Hull:
Lepricauns needed, will pay well. I left about three years of shoulder use on the hull trying to replace things under deck. I gave up and had Ocean House do it, I have no idea how anyone of size can access the bilge on this boat. IF there was a way to lift the livewell even 3" it would be a snap, but with the livewell there, no dice. Unless I'm in an emergency, I'll never venture into the bilge other than to drain the racor or test the bilge pump. Even with the oil tank out my shoulders get stuck in the rear opening. I'm a big guy, but not that big. The rear hatch leaks as it's cheap. Thanks again to those that pointed this out as I was constantly getting water in the bilge and did not know where it was coming from. Turns out while dropping the boat water was getting in through that hatch. I made some mods to it and now it's water free. Midway through the summer my fuel gauge died. Pulling the hatch near the sending unit revealed it too leaked water and had pooled a little water in the corrugated tube and subsequently corroded the splice. It was NOT sealed in any way, just a haphazard splice. I used heat sealed tubing and then hit it with the liquid tape which should prevent a reoccurence.... As everyone knows I had some issues under deck to begin with that were repaired by Ocean House to my satisfaction. It seems I got the Christmas boat, and although it's fine overall just a few little details were skipped that caused problems. One suggestion I've complained about before, the aft rod holders drain INTO the bilge but drain above a beam that allows water to sit and submerge several thru-hulls. IMO bad idea, which required a towel after every rain event. I'm having the dealer replace the rear rod holders with Perko's that have caps to prevent this next year. I may be alone on this but standing water on fiberglass and metal parts seems like a problem waiting to happen, Hydrasport does it twice, once in the anchor locker, once under deck....otherwise they are great.
PROBLEMS:
Hull had several pock marks at delivery that I did not catch. I should have listened to everyone here, DO NOT EVER buy a boat, or even take one for free without a survey done. A surveyor would have caught the problems and I honestly would have walked on the boat. It's a $300-$500 insurance policy, think of it as title insurance. I believe the hull was damaged in transport, whether that was manufacturer to trucker, trucker to dealer, or dealer on the lot I don't know, don't care. Fact is I got a boat that needed to have a 10 foot strip redone. It looks near perfect and it was cosmetic, but for 65k, annoying. Inside the bilge I had mystery holes drilled into the coring. IMO someone measured wrong at the factory, rather than filling the holes with glass and gelcoat, they used caulking. The caulking dried and shrunk, allowing water in. The servicing dealer fixed the problem, and I'm confident it was caught before it got bad. The bilge pump failed after another mishap. In the end I replaced it with an all in one Rule 1500. Hydrasport took care of it under warranty. The console/dash was installed by a 3rd party as it is on most Hydrasports. Someone forgot the gasket for the Clarion, it leaked and fried the unit. It never worked right, I thought it was a Sirius problem, it was the unit getting wet on the lot pre-delivery and post delivery. I replaced the unit myself with the gasket, never had another problem. Hydrasport took care of this under warranty. I do understand now that Hydrasport ships the boat (or did, maybe not any longer) with only one charging cable. Technically the boats are pre-rigged. Well, the cost sheet on the repair from the second dealer was maybe 200 bucks to do it right, including dealer markup. Those 200 bucks would have mitigated one half summer of aggravation. On a 65k boat there is no excuse, I don't care who does the work, it should have been delivered to HPDI spec. Some will disagree that's fine, the person taking my money IMO is responsible for the boat and nobody else. Once it was brought up to spec it was a perfect boat. I am in the camp that many of the HPDI problems trace squarely to dealers. I wonder how much damage it does to ride around with a fouled motor...the carbon must chew up the parts and they eventually let go.
By year end, once all the delivery problems were fixed, I never lost another minute on the water. I did have to fix the fuel gauge...no big deal and thanks to the Yamaha Fuel Management system I was fairly sure that day I had plenty of fuel and I did. The last two weeks of the season I kept eyeballing my passengers waistline as the boat was listing to starboard. I'd been losing weight and I kept thinking what a fat bugger my buddies were. Turns out the starboard Lenco was letting go slowly. As the owner of Bennett correctly diagnosed again on this forum, the actuator was slowly failing resulting in an inaccurate dash reading. The tab was always slightly behind the port tab, causing a lean. Once I figured this out, it never failed, I just had to hold it down longer to get it down, or up to get it to retract. At year end it was still kicking, and is being replaced now. That's it, the grand total of repairs after 40 hours was 1 trim tab that never really failed, and 2 fuel sender wires that took an hour to fix on my own, not too shabby.
Loadmaster Trailer:
Time will tell as will experience. It's very easy to load and unload, I give it an A+ there. It provides no safety chain mechanism from the factory. Sure, there is an eyelet at the base of the crank stand, but by the time that "held" the boat it would be hanging 5 feet off the back of the trailer. I had Ocean House install a chain under the belt for $10...problem solved. The trailer was by far the most expensive to operate. At year end it needed new brakes, new hubs and several other parts. The brakes were shot from day 1, but with the problem I had with the dealer I wasn't about to bring it back. I think the pads got torched because the rear-lockout wasn't working due to a faulty wire at delivery. Not knowing what I was doing I think I did a number on them forcing it to back up. Regardless, I dropped several hundred dollars getting it back to spec. I believe next time I'll check out one of the other brands here, but I'm told that trailers are the weak link in the boating business. Time will tell, and maybe with the brakes now fixed on my dime I won't have problems next year.
Purchasing Information:
I bought the boat from Mike and Heidi at Eagle Marine, Rte 3A in Sagamore MA. I did not price shop, and never set foot in another Hydrasport dealer. I now know I got a phenemonal price on the boat and trailer. I never negotiated price or asked for a discount, they gave a price and that is what I paid. Looking back the greatest misunderstanding was that I didn't care about the money, I just wanted the boat done right and good quick service - at whatever price. I guess in retrospect I thought spending 60k for a boat would provide some higher level of service, like buying an expensive car does. I guess at least up here that idea carries no weight. Would I recommend Eagle? I wouldn't not recommend them but would advise you get a detailed written contract that explicitly states what date you have to pick up the boat and what the penalty is if you don't. IMO for 60k, this shouldn't be a mystery, it should be on the contract. My bad for not getting it in writing and putting in writing when I'd be in to get the boat. Many here said this was normal procedure, and I blame myself for not stipulating all this beforehand...lesson learned. I do think I paid fees others didn't pay as a penalty, but this has already been discussed. Get it in writing, and you should be fine. GET A SURVEY irregarless of where you buy a boat, it protects you AND the dealer. To those that made some derogatory comments towards this dealer in terms of their lot etc, it's 100 times better now. I'm not sure if my mess spurred some of that, but the lot looks great now. Either way that benefits them and their customers past, present and future.
Ocean House. Well, I can't say enough nice things. I've had over $3,000 in work done there this summer in parts, supplies and labor. The work done to close the boat and prep it for next year came to $1900.00 That included the trailer work, maintenance I asked for, and as usual whatever they found and storage. Dealing with them could not be any easier. I send an email or leave a checklist when I drop it off. If there are any questions they call or email. Everything has been done to a level of, or exceeding my expectations. Their technicians knew from day 1 they could resolve my issues, and despite my doubts they did. I have no problem driving 1.5 hours each way versus 5 minutes because I know things are done, I know they are in writing, and as they say, the results speak for themselves. My next boat will be either a McKee or a Hydrasport, and it will come from Ocean House irregardless of price. Service was very fast too, and this includes the peak season earlier in the year. The last drop off was done on 10/20, the boat was done a little over a week later. A lower purchase price might save you a few bucks at first, but in the end top notch service is what keeps you on the water. I wasn't aware of the money I was saving, but in the end when you effectively lose 2 months of your first season all savings are moot IMO. Some may think 3k is a lot for one summer, like the mastercard commercials say, to me it's priceless. EDIT: about 1/3 was reimbursed in parts I purchased that were replaced under warranty.
I'm still too chicken to try outside the breachway down there, maybe next year
Edit: Forgot to Mention Hydrasport Corp. They were great, patient, understanding, professional. I should have gone to them earlier but felt like it was talking out of school. A+ and a company that stands behind their product.
If I missed anything or you have any questions feel free to ask.
2004 24' Hydrasport Vector w 250 HPDI review 
. I traveled from the NH/Mass line to buy a boat from them and continued to drag it back and forth for service the first year. They went to bat for me with some sticky warrentee issues and kept working it through to the end although it took nearly a year to get couple hull related issues right. The mechanics are top shelf. One thing that impressed me early on was when the owner told me that rather than use the newest-greenest mechanics to set up new boats, he put his most experienced guys on that whenever he could. They are more familiar with the detail required, the whole job usually looks more professional and they make those Yamis hum. 
