Mine was painted blue - paint was in rough shape. I just picked the boat up a couple years ago (presented itself as one of those deals too good to pass up) - I was going to clean it up and replace the one patch, prep, prime and paint the transom and sell it after the summer, but I've really taken a liking to it.
Transom on this one, a 3.10 Rover, forget the year off the top of my head, mid to late 90's, while they were using the Leafield B-7 valves (which CAN, incidentally, be rebuilt in-situ without opening the fabric of the boat), was made of good, high grade mahogany plywood. Except for the big vertical crack from an atrocity perpetrated by it's previous owner, the wood is still in great shape, despite the paint having failed a year or two ago and it's current owner still not getting around to it. That crack was no good, though - whole transom was flexing and bowing real bad. Original owner had taken a piece of aluminum and wood screwed it to the bottom of the transom - I assume to keep the fabric from chafing, but at the expense of wrecking the transom.
Have any more details on the boat you're looking at? Year, model, valve type, pictures, number of patches, lifting seam tape, lifting floor, keel and sponsons holding pressure, sponson baffle intact (if one side is fully inflated and the other side is deflated, do both equalize? Shouldn't)
