Think of iot this way...without development and people willing to experiment with the "bleeding edge" and spending $$$, where would we be? We'd all be sailing Albacore's from the 1940's.

Read Brethwaite's book "High Performance Sailing" for some extremely valid points about why having open classes like the 18 footer skiffs is critical in advancing the sport.


One manufacturer classes such as Hobie14/16 are operated primarily as a business to keep the company going. All boat components/parts must be purchased through the recognized manufacturer, the idea being it keeps all boats nearly equal in performance with the added benefit of keeping the company profitable. One drawback is that as the class ages, new materials appear on the market that have potentially lower costs and improved properties. These can't be readily adopted into the class because this would violate the "all boats identical" rule and there is little or no incentive for the manufacturer to go and re-design components when everyone must come to them for the older stuff anyway (i.e. no competition in the component market).

Now compare this to a more open, multi-manufacturer class such as Tornado. This boat appeared on the scene at the end of the 1960's, pretty close to the Hobie16 I believe. Unlike a lot of other classes, there is no designated manufacturer and only the class membership gets to determine the rules, not a constructer company...so the rules are more about the sailor's desires than about profits for the company. But people say...the only real Tornado builder is Marstrom...which is correct...for the moment. THey came up with a better way to make the boats that no one else on the scene could compete with. This lead to most other builders going out of business...but there is no reason another builder won't ever challenge Marstrom in the future.

While is it obvious to everyone that the Hobie is easily the more successful boat in terms of numbers sold and profits generated, it certainly is not the better sailing boat from a performance standpoint. But more importantly, unlike the Tornado, which continued to improve over the past 30 years with changes in construction techniques and rig development, the H16 today is basically stuck at the same performance level it had back in the early '70's. Some think this is terrific...that's fine, enjoy it. But for me, I don't like the idea of a stagnated technology. I want improvement & evolution. I expect that form cars I drive and in the boat I sail.

No one is forcing you to get into an arms race of spending...there are lots of classes out there that outlaw this.