You don't think there is a market for a sporty recreational boat? Everyone should own a " Race Boat" or if not then a Getaway. What else is there. H-16?? I talk to people almost weekly that are looking for something inexpensive that will last like a lot of past Hobie's or Prindles or Nacra's.
This is easy to answer. These people are best served with a Nacra 500 and at least you see them pop up everywhere. That Hobie MAX is also a better alternative if Hobie drops is price from the current 16.000 Euro. I mean if I can get a standard nacra 500 for 11.000 Euro, a standard Tiger for 15.000 and an standard F16 for 14.500 why on earth would you pay 16.000 Euro for a Bloody recreational MacMax, eeehh I mean a Hobie Max.
Hobie Max I've sailed both the Hobie Pacific (skeg version of the Tiger) with MacDacron sails, ehh darn it, Hobie Dacron sails and the cheaper Nacra 500 with Pentex sails. The Hobie felt like a missisippi steamboat and the Nacra 500 felt like a nice recreational catamaran.
I think Hobie Europe is getting it completely wrong. Get a proper new F18 design out and keep the Tiger, redesign the hobie singlehander to make it real, improve the Hobie Max as the Hobie 16 replacement and as the recreational entry cat and stick to the rotomoulded Wave for the real novices. All other models must be terminated, they are not serving any viable section of the cat scene. And dump the silly names like Twixxy, Teddy, Catsy and Pearl. I kid you not, these are real Hobie cat names !
Unless your trying to be the first to "A" mark what's wrong with centerboards.
For racing get daggerboards, for recreational sailing get skegs. Centreboards are a bit of neither. They make the design almost as expensive as a daggerboards version and are only very slightly better upwind then skegs but make the boat weight more. You can still get leaking daggerboards wells and they can still jam up with sand and salt. Additionally, they still make traversing the surf more difficult then a hull with skegs.
The time of centreboards has passed.
They belong to a time where the quality of laminate work didn't really allow proper daggerboards. With carbon and better vacuum techniques this is a thing of the past. We might as well go back to wooden masts.
Wouter
