hi

i bought a 5.2 last year and have been loving it

this is the best place on the web for info about them, so start searching;o)

compared to the hobie 16 it has a lot more fore/aft stability with much more hull volume fore/aft of the beams

it will pitchpole but you can push it far more than the hobie

it's also slightly bigger all round but with about the same weight. however like the hobie16 you can't guarantee that you'll right it solo with just a righting line

as pretty much a dedicated racer when it came out in 1975 it has many more sail controls than the 16

a) mast rotation control
b) jib luff tension
c) full sized jib
d) diamond wires

but the biggest performance gain would be the big daggers which allow much better upwind angles. don't forget to get them up before running up the beach, or it could be very expensive...

there were quite a few changes over it's 10? year production until it was eventually phased out by the nacra 5.5, which was slightly bigger all round again but LIGHTER

about 1984 it changed to swept spreaders and in about 1985 to foam cored hulls. hull number should tell you what year it is

$1200 seems a good price for a good boat on a trailer

mods to mine so far are rudder hold up cleats, so i can drag it backwards up onto the beach and fixed joints to stop the rudder crossbar rotating around and binding at some angles

over the winter i will reroute the jib block wires under the tramp and cuts slots in the tramp so the wire only comes above the tramp where it needs to be for the blocks

post some pics if you can