I'm just totally unconvinced it will threaten the regular glass based beach cat scene as another poster mentioned
Why on earth would anyone think that another beachcat would threaten the "regular beachcat" scene. Surely it could only complement and help the catamaran scene, regardless of the material the hulls are constructed from, or its performance.
Gareth
Some feel that Hobie (the largest catamaran maker) spending less research money on developing higher performance catamarans may hurt the sport in the long run. They are basically saying, “Racers, we have done good enough for a few years. We will check back with you later, if you are still there. We will let small companies focus on development and we will just copy it in 10 years.”
Thanks Matt, well stated. As I mentioned before us "geographically challenged" cat sailors in the US are pretty much tied to Hobie. If you don't live within 6 hours of the Pacific, Atlantic, Gulf or Great Lakes you're, outside of micro areas, for the most part stuck with Hobie. The availibility of used and new boats and the availibilty of racing is for the largest majority is Hobie, period. The vast majority of used boats (H14, H16, TheMightyHobie18) are pre-1990. Find a boat other than Hobie and you'll have to find a yacht club willing to score you and who will you race against (no OPEN fleet starts at Hobie regattas).
I don't think the millenial generation (1982 to present demographic and 76 million strong), extreme sport, American youth is fawning over a Bravo or Wave or Getaway. Of course they could could buy a spanking new Hobie 16.
Ten years is a long damn time. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />
