Keith is right. The sterns dragging in the water creates quite a bit of drag. This is because you no longer have smooth (laminar) flow, but turbulent flow. Consider what the water "sees" as it comes to the abrupt corner of the stern dragging.

What's a real drag is that it's almost impossible NOT to drag the leeward transom on an TheMightyHobie18 in heavy air. With the crew weight well aft to keep the bow from burying, the transom can't help but drag. Avoiding a pitchpole is a higher priority than keeping the transoms out of the water. How about a carbon fiber 18? The all-up weight could be kept under 300 lbs.



David HO

TheMightyHobie18 1067