Any reason you can't just buy a 17 Sport Forestay? How did you convert your old forestay bridle to the new length? If you just added a couple short wires without the foil, I'd be real concerned that you were putting extreme stress on the hulls. The 17 hull is light, would increase the risk of fracturing/collapsing a hull with loading the stress in the direction pulling inward instead of up. The factory front foil is the same stock as a H-17 boom, but I would think any sort of reinforced aluminum tube would work just as well the only point of the foil on the 17 is to keep the working loads on the hulls in the directions for which it is designed, not pulling both hulls inward. If you coupled that with the pressure of the water pushing in the same direction that the forestay is pulling, you have drastically increased the load and are probably looking at a stress failure of the hulls at some point when you're having the most fun.

Just my .02

CARY

Hobie 17 Sport Guy, too