I've heard the rumors about the Hobie A-cat but have found the concept puzzling--Hobie creating and marketing an A-cat doesn't seem to fit with their overall market presence and approach, which relies heavily on branding, selling a lifestyle, and maintaining a consistent, nearly unchanging product (sort of like how a McDonald's Big Mac being the same here as in Hong Kong). Unlike any other cat manufacturers, Hobie still has a large base of recreational sailors. They don't buy A-cats and most have never even heard of the class.

Interestingly, A-cats are more of a yacht club based phenomenon in the US, while the Hobie scene is Hobie-only-fleet based.

In a way, I'm sure Hobie would rather focus on the Tiger class rather than the F18 class; they're only being forced to do so.

The only way I can understand why Hobie would bother with delveloping an A-cat is that perhaps it's like Ford spending a bundle on developing a hand-built supercar. They don't expect to sell many; the product won't be the best value (hand-built cottage projects are not efficient); but it's a sort of "flag ship" for the company.