I know... it is a great boat. I love sailing the 20. A buddy of mine, Mike Hammond, and I were just out on his 20 this weekend, having a GREAT time. Discontinuing the 17 was a tough decision, as is the 20.

This is simple supply and demand. Not enough demand and continued production required too many supplies. It is a fact of business life that products reach the end of their sales cycle at some point. I won't bother listing the discontinued models of our competitors (and some competitors themselves) over the last ten to twenty years.

We cannot continue to build a product when that-product requires the purchase of large lots of materials where much of it would go unused. Those materials would not be used up in a reasonable time, if at all. Aluminum extruders are our number one issue for discontinuing product that is at low production volume. We have to buy thousands of pounds of extrusion when we do. This material must also be processed before it shelf hardens. We simply can't have materials just sit on the shelf for years to come. The cost of excess materials and the labor for processing unusable / unsellable materials are prohibitive.

We very much appreciate your support of the Hobie 20 through the last decade and a half. We will, of course, continue to support Hobie 20 replacement part needs through our Parts and Accessories department as we are the 14, 17, 18, 21 and TriFoiler along with others.

To address some concerns about our focus and future...

We are a vibrant and growing company. In fact, our sales of other product that we build is growing very fast. We are continuing to expand our production facility and warehousing both here in Oceanside and in Australia. Along with the Hobie Bravo, Hobie Wave and Hobie Getaway, Hobie 16, Hobie FX-1 and Hobie Tiger, we also build the Hobie Adventure Island (likely the number one selling small sailboat in the World now) and thousands of Hobie Mirage kayaks that sell equipped with accessory sail rigs every year. I believe we will continue to be the leader in bringing new sailors into sailing in general... and high performance sailing specifically as these consumers progress in their sailing experience.