Hi Mary,

Yes I have surfed the Hobie Wave in surf as big as "head high" (6') foot surf. The trick to getting out when it is bigger is timing the sets and knowing where the "channel" or rip current is. You also have to fall off as necessary and heat it up as soon as you clear a wave. The whole wave piercing hull concept works until the wave hits the front cross beam on some boats...I think this may be a problem with the F-18HT's this year in the Worrell but let's hope not. The Hobie Wave and Inter 20 both with their increased buoancy float over the wave as long as it is not cracking right on top of you. Wave piercing works in chop or smaller waves, but look at surfing as an example...Shortboarders do what is called a "duck dive" which is essentially board and rider diving and piercing through the water and under the wave and allowing the wave and the majority of its impact flow over top of them. We old fat guys who surf longboards have to blast through, use the rip or even turn turtle to let the wave flow over us as even with our longboards being able to pierce the wave, once the body is impacted you are going tumbling or backwards towards the beach. Since you cannot get the sailors, rigging, sails, etc. under the surface of the wave there is going to be an impact with something that is non-piercing if the wave is big enough and the wave breaks before it gets to you. I've had my Inter-17R out in the surf and it has a much narrower entry profile than the Inter 20 and it behaves pretty well also so I cannot make a judgement as to one design that works best for all wave conditions. I have five different surfboards for the different wave sizes and conditions so there is probably not one best solution in Cats either...only compromise.

The most importanrt things are speed, timing the wave sets, and knowing wher the rip is in my opinion.

Rod Waterhouse and Jaine Livingston are both surfers and you can see how well they do compared to most of the Worrell teams when the surf gets over a couple of feet. When I was sponsoring and supporting Rod in the Worrell with Team Guidant we would always have the wave sets timed and know where rips were which provided a faster ride to the outside.

Most of the time I take the Hobie Wave out in the smaller 2 -3 foot summer surf and with a little practice it is great fun. You are probably right about the factories fear of the boats getting tore up, but I can say from experience that the Hobie Wave is one tough boat.

I just think the Wave is a cool little boat and was trying to think of some new ideas to have some fun with it. There is plenty of serious racing out there...this was just a fun idea to show off another side of the Wave.

All the best,

Jim Stone
Entegra Racing
Inter-20
Inter-17R
Hobie Wave