Jules,

My first boat was a Hobie 16 when I was 15 years old. I weighed around 130lbs (dunno what that is in kilos) at the time. It was a good first boat because it was cheap and it made me never want another H-16. Don't get me wrong- I thoroughly enjoyed sailing it, but I quickly realized it is a poor design. I sold the H-16 in less than a year, and haven't touched one since. In my opinion they are about the worst sailboat design on the planet. Low bouyancy hulls means it won't handle enough weight to sail well in heavy air. Low bouyancy bows make it super-easy to pitchpole. The pillar/platform trampoline design makes it impossible to keep stiff- the hulls walk like crazy. Low-aspect asymetrical hull shape doesn't even work until you're flying one hull out of the water, and even then it doesn't work as well as a center/dagger-board boat.

It's a 1960s boat, designed with 1960s materials in mind, and competitive with other 60s and some 70s designs. Almost anything developed in the 70s-80s will outperform it, and everything developed in the 90s will.(even some of the Hobie Waves are being sailed well enough to keep pace to the H16!)

Wood is an excellent building material for sailboats. By weight, it is 7 times stiffer than fiberglass and 5 times stiffer than kevlar. Used as a core with fiberglass sheathing it can be built stronger and lighter than almost anything but carbon-fiber.

You will be able to go faster on a T4.9 without pushing it as much as the H16. You'll be able to point higher by footing a T4.9 when you'd be trapezing off the back of a H16 to avoid stuffing the bow. You'll be able to push a T4.9 much harder than a H16 because, again, you won't have to worry about stuffing the bow. You can right a T4.9 more easily because it weighs less. You can manuever it better because it has boards and, again, it weighs less. The T4.9 should be less likely to suffer a failure, because it's lighter weight puts less stress on critical components.

I suspect that Hobie dealer is more interested in selling Hobies than finding out what the competition has put out on the market. Go sail a T4.9 yourself, sail the H16 directly after, sail the T4.9 again... make your own observations and choose which boat works best for you.