[quote
Maybe if Hobie didn't make the 18's last so long some of those sailors would have bought new ones! Obviously as a customer of 27 years ago he expects Hobie to sit around with new boats until he finally wants another one.

Blasting Matt about what Hobie is doing is like telling one of my employees you don't like how I'm running my business... he's got nothing to do with what decisions I make so you're wasting your time.

Just my rant,

Clayton [/quote]

Just for the record, I bought the FIRST of my brand new Hobie 18's 27 years ago. The last New 18 I bought was delivered to me on a Wednesday in October of 2003, the same week the announcement was made that they were discontinuing production on the H-18.

Further, over the past 6 years, I have bought and refurbished 10 Hobie 18's using factory parts whenever possible. Looking back over my purchases I have spent not spent less than $1000 on HOBIE parts in any one year, and some years I have spent significantly more than that.

I have not yet had the opportunity to make my feelings known to any of the rest of "Hobie Management", and their stable of "intelligent engineers" aren't posting here so I cannot address them either. However, if we don't use the path of communication that Matt Miller provides, how will our thoughts ever make it to the upper echelon? If we just roll over and say nothing, HCC will think it is just fine that they abandon us.

Having been self employed for over 30 years, I do have a fair understanding of some of the issues facing HCC.

I certainly do not understand ALL of the issues but it seems to me that there must be a way to approach this that does not include killing off all of the classes with the exception of the Hobie 16.

Stephen