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.”
At the Annapolis boat show I talked briefly with the people at the Hobie display, one from Hobie and one from Backyard Boats. I asked them that given the upsurge we've had in cat racing in the Galesville area (right around the corner from a Backyard Boats Hobie dealership) was there any interest in them getting involved? We've built an A-Cat fleet and now an Inter-20 fleet, I bet if a Tiger started showing up (or even a 16 or 20) they might get some interest as well. Answers were along the line of "the day of a bizillion cats at a race is over", and the "roto-molded stuff is selling like hotcakes". So, no interest at all in trying to revitalize their base in an area where cat sailing has been working to come back. What a shame and lost opportunity.
That having been said, I did like the kayak/trimaran, actually thought about it as something to get my Dad back on the water. Beyond that, not much interest for me in what they had to offer.
When we see the Getaway doing a reprise of the Hobie-18 movie flying off the breakers in the surf at Hawaii maybe I'll be interested in it. But for me, for the price, I'd probably still rather have the 18 magnum.
