This is just a post to the general public and not intended as a direct reply to mr. Bundock.

I in fact am on the side of the people who say that any design is good enough to win a championship on; it is the training, talent and shear determination that gets you there. Still, I can't help to notice a glaring disconnect over the last couple of years.

I remember the Tiger from 1995, it had a squaretop (small) mainsail and a jib sail that was sheeted of a wire running across the trampoline. The spinnaker looked like a balloon and was launched from a bag on the trampoline. The downhaul was 1:8 and the downhaul line was a thick as my thumb. The mast rotation was placed on the boom and the boom was a large rectangular section with an internal car. Just to name a few points, there are more.

Then, quite quickly we say the squaretop being replaced by a pin head mainsail, a mylar version. The jib sheeting was moved to the mainbeam and the spinnaker sail changed slowly into a more flat shape with broader shoulders.

Only 1 or 2 years later again, the trampoline setup was changed and the squaretop sail was reintroduced which hobie called the ST mainsail. The first pentex sails were introduced. The first snuffers began to be introduced and the boom was replaced by a much lighter round tube without a clew car. The Tiger hulls received a stiffening subdeck in the bows.

A little later again the selftacker was introduced and the new STX mainsail which has a significantly larger head and was exclusively pentex based. The spinnaker went through another shape change making them actually quite good of the shelve (which before that time was not always the case). The rig was properly sorted and rumour has it that is was named the Booth set of sails. I don't know to what extend that rumour reflects reality. On the beach it was however called that for a while.

But we are not done yet, not too long ago much stiffer carbon daggerboards and rudder boards were introduced and mast rotation was moved down to the trampoline and the downhaul system became a cascading 12:1 system with specialized flexible high tensile lines to reduce friction. I just read the post by mark laruffa and he states that the mast itself was replaced by a slightly softer one in the past. If this is true then that is a significant change as well.

What can we expect in the future. First of all the new fully battened jib. Very quickly the Tiger is the last F18 in the fleet to have an old style pear shaped mast. Either all the others with elliptical masts are wrong or Hobie will join this group in the future. This of course means another mast change. And we can go on .... but I think this part of my argument is pretty clear.

So what is my point exactly ?


Well during these 10 years I have heard scores of Hobie sailors say that they thought that the Tiger was good enough as it was and never needed to change.


Personally I would like to see one of those take out a 1995 vintage Tiger to a championship and proof all of us who made changes wrong.

Now I'm sure mr Bundock and mr. Ashby will come a very long way on such a boat precisely because they are very talented and have put in enormous amounts of time training and honing their skills. But I seriously doubt they would come out on top sailing this 1995 vintage boat. When given a choice I'm sure they will opt to use the 2005 (or 2006) version.

Give it another 10 years (or even less) and the same can be said of the 2005 version. Ergo the Tiger design NEEDS to change and WILL change in the coming years. It is inevitable.


Wouter