HEAVENLY HONDO HYDRO

Heavenly Hondo

photography by Ray Lee HYDRO

Chris Williamson bought this 1978 Hondo Hydro from his uncle—then proceeded to give it a full restoration.

It was nearly 25 years ago that Chris Williamson purchased his 1978 18'6" Hondo hydro jet from his uncle, who lived in Whittier, CA. “My uncles really got me into drag boating when I was a kid,” he recalls. “We were always going to IHBA races at Puddingstone and Castaic. I was hooked when I was in diapers.” It was at these races that Williamson met the legend himself— Eddie Knox (who was buddies with his other uncle) and Williamson is still good friends with Knox to this day.

Williamson kept the boat original until eight years ago, after his uncle passed away. “That’s when I tore it down and reworked the boat—it became kind of a memorial piece to him,” he says. “He was a very big Ford guy, so we kept the original 460 Ford engine, except it’s a 517 now and has about 700 ponies behind it.”

The Hondo hydro jet is not a particularly well-loved setup among segments of the hot boat crowd, he says. “I’ve taken quite a bit of heat from people over the last couple of decades having a jet hydro,” he says. “But it’s a great little river boat—it’s fun and it’s stable, and since I’ve owned it, it hasn’t behaved poorly in the way people generally think it’s going to at speed.” Special thanks go to Greg Shoemaker at GS Marine for his extensive work on the pump.

Eddie Knox rigged the Hondo, and Greg Shoemaker at GS Marine did all of the pump work and flow-coated the bilge area and the stringers. The bigblock Ford engine features Pro Comp aluminum heads, Bassett headers, tunnel ram, dual 750-cfm Proform carbs and a Dominator pump.