Hobie has never made real money off of racers (well, not since the 80s, anyway). The resorts and rentals help, but the MAJORITY of their income (I'm guessing) has been and will continue to be Mom and Pop weekender who want a boat to putz around in; a large percentage of these boats will sit a lot of the time. They sell more kayaks than sailboats now, even WITH the cheap import competition. I bet the 16 still gets some crossover sales from this "fun" market AND the rental area AND a heck of a lot of parts sales; ain't nobody (statistically speaking) buying a Tiger or 20 to fool around with on the lake, and I can't imagine a rental place that would put up with the maintenance and liability issues of renting these boats (especially crew-chewer 20s :-).

The cat racing scene is declining in the US. Look at Div 11, covering most of the Chesapeake Bay and Jersey Shore; some great sailing areas in the most densely populated part of the country. Attendance has been on a down trend since the 80s. We used to have a 10-12 boat 20 fleet; last year the Div Championship was based on a two-boat match race at one regatta. I think I might have the newest 20 in the whole Div with a '98 (that I bought used). The 18s are still hanging in there, and even jumped up a little recently, but only one? of those guys has bought a new boat in the last 5 years. HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT PRODUCTION with those kind of sales in a major market?? How many ex and new racers are now on A-Cats, Nacra 20s, F-16s, and even back to 16s? Even worse, how many are not racing?

Other than the Hobie 18/20 (and Shark?), there isn't ANY viable US one design two-man big boat non-spin cat racing. That market looks pretty f'ing small. Is there viable racing in this segment in Europe? Clearly most cat racers are not boat-loyal; the latest/greatest always sells some boats. IMO a lot of people moved to the 20 because it was faster; some of them didn't like that faster = more work and more fragile, and went back, and some of them liked faster still and moved on. H18s, P19s, H20s, Mystere 6.0s, and N6.0s all came to market as the fastest affordable racer you could get (we'll leave the Tornado out of this for the moment, but where is the US fleet on THAT?). Now the fastest affordable racer you can get has a spin, and all of those other boats have really dropped. Give Hobie and the class association some credit; if we were talking about a brand X 18 and 20, they would have already disappeared as a class. Square tops are new, carbon masts are new, maybe everything will have a spin in the future. A cheap simple Getaway snuffer kit would sell a few, I bet.

Get back to the Shark. Here is an old design limited production class in this same category still hanging in there, and you can still buy a new Shark at a fairly resaonable price (I think). I cannot belive the builder is making enough to live on soley by building Sharks. In theory, the class COULD commission a builder and make new 20s; they could even approve slight changes to account for non-Hobie design and parts (are they still building Hurrican 5.9s in the UK?). I still suspect that even a small builder would be hard pressed to live off of 18 AND 20 sales, but if this builder was also making Mobjacks and Buccaneers (to name two monohull classes that have already gone through this MULTIPLE times), then maybe it works. It does NOT work for a volume manufacturer UNLESS they want to make a statement AND have money to burn.

I hope the boat lives on, and I would LOVE to see a super 20 with square top, carbon mast and skinny daggers, carefully handbuilt and weighing in at 375 or less :-) I don't see Hobie building anymore, though, and I don't blame them. Oh, by the way, expect to see a classified ad next spring for a cherry '98...