I was at the Annapolis boatshow yesterday, and with all this in mind, I looked at the catamaran representation at the show from the mind's eye of what would be the impression people would get of Hobie and cat-sailing in general.

I would think that Hobie is a kayak company.

A slightly unfortunate location had things tucked away somewhat. The Getaway was tucked away, an FX1 was more prominant, but behind the kayaks. The salesman noted to customers that the 18 was discontinued, that it weighed 600 lbs, and that the much lighter FX1 was a completely different boat as it was a race boat that couldn't launch from the beach, and that it was not really for more than one person. Price on the FX1, after you added the jib and spin pakage was almost $14k without trailer. There was a Wave and Bravo.

When I was there, there seemed to be few people taking notice at all, but the interest was in the FX1. Little excitement, lots of kayaks.

But at least they were there - the only other small cat was the Escape. No Performance boats, not even the Isotope this year.