I tried some serious speed runs with my Hobie 16 last weekend and managed to reach 22.4 knots (25.7 mph) in flat water and winds around 20 knots. I tooks us 10 speed runs with double trapeze (150 kg, 330 lbs) and standing as far back as possible. Weather rudder lifted clear, lots of downhaul and traveller all the way out on the jib and 0.7 meters out on the main. We sailed the boat deeper and deeper on the reach, double trapezing with weather hull just touching the water. I was a bit nervous about doing a pitchpole in that speed, but what the heck! We had a couple of near misses where the hull dug in, the boat stopped a bit, dumped the main and we ended up in a pile at the main beam. My crew hit the corner casting quite hard but he felt ok until I landed on him, then it was PAIN!
To get some REAL data out of this I used a software called gpsActionreplay to get statistics from the gps tracks.
Best 500 meter run was 20.5 knots
Best 250 meter run was 21.3 knots
Best 100 meter run was 24 knots (probably some glitch)
Check the link below for the html that the software generated.
http://www.webbo.dyndns.org/hobbe/speed_test//hakan
