Recently picked up my brand new Hobie 16 last saturday. I had my one hour set-up demonstration by the dealer that turned into a three hour setup as no one has bought a new hobie 16 from them since 2007 and it took a while for the demonstrator to figure out the rigging. Especially the Spinnaker as he had never seen one himself until he rigged it to my cat.
The next day we took the cat to lake texana and I managed to set the whole thing up with relative ease. Put it in the water and pushed off, only to realize that there wasn't a breath of wind and I left my colapsable paddle in the garage at home. I beat feet (literally... on the water) to get back to the launch ramp and pulled the boat up on the grass. We waited about an hour and a half for the wind to finally pick up to a couple of puffs. While I was waiting, I McGivered a paddle by lashing two small fenders to the lower half of a beach umbrella. I managed to paddle the boat out from behind the wind shadow of the landing and into open water where we had about an hour and a half of light wind. Just enough to get us out for our cruise and back to the boat launch. It was a good first day, nice and mellow and the boat performed well. My first mate (wife) got the hang of operating the jib. I'm getting to my question but I just wanted to share my joy of the first day on my new Hobie.

I let down the sails and loaded the boat onto the trailer and pulled it half way up the ramp, then stopped and removed the drain plugs to check for water. I was a little supprised when the starboard hull puffed some air out of the hull. It had a strong odor of fiberglass, which I would expect being brand new and the resin takes time to cure, but should I be concerned about the pressure? I thought that they had an equalizer tube for air to move from the hull to the atmosphere through one of the posts. Should I return to the dealer to have him check the tube? I have left the plugs loose in the meantime.
One other thing I was surprised about was that when we tacked and changed position on the tramp the frame made a creaking noise. Is this normal for Hobie 16's?
Thanks for having a place to post questions to more knolegeable sailors.

Regards,
Flip57