When I received my newsletter from NAHCA (North American Hobie Cat Assn.) I Ran across a letter to the editor from a lady named Margaret From Indiatlantic, Florida. I hope Margaret will read this letter:
<br>Dear Margaret,
<br>With great interest I read your letter "..that people are using sails other than the class legal sails..." Then added, "Please tell me you are going to keep the Wave as a class boat and not allow major modifications to the class."
<br>First of all, as IWCA (International Wave Class Assn.) President, I will do everything in my power to allow no major modifications to the class. We have worked hard to keep things very simple on the boat -- we want the winner of a regatta to do so on his/her abilities, not on how many tricks and gadgets you can buy to make your boat faster.
<br>The Wave is a common denominator of all the cats I have ever sailed and reduces your tuning to such simple things as mast rake, downhaul, sheeting and steering. Well, that leaves one with a lot of time on your hands while sailing. This lets you concentrate on the bigger things in sailing, i.e., getting good starts, not overstanding laylines, good mark roundings, fast tacks and jibes, etc.
<br>So, you see, Margaret, we truly believe that the boats should be all the same or as close to the same as possible.
<br>Now, you have brought up the sail and the fact that we allow builders of the sail other than Hobie Cat Company.
<br>That is true and outside sails ARE "class legal." And the reason is that the class has set up a rule by which ALL sails are measured to insure sameness of size.
<br>Funny, but when Mary (Wells) and I came up with the idea of having a Wave National Championship, we really were not sure what would happen, who would show, or whatever. Sure enough we had 30 boats attend. There was only one sail used that was not Hobie-built -- and it was way smaller than all the rest. The sailor was my son, David White. He tanked with that particular sail. Halfway through the regatta he swapped for a clear Hobie Sail and did well after that.
<br>More interesting is that of all the Hobie sails that participated, there were three very different sized sails. On our first Wave that we bought when the Wave first came out the sail was 18" shorter on the luff than the clear sails that were way oversized. By the way, the clear, oversized Hobie Sails won.
<br>Now, if you had just bought a new Hobie Wave complete with Hobie sails, you would have been blown away by these clear Hobie sails -- no matter how well you sailed. Is that fair? No, of course not! Is that one-design? Not even close!
<br>It was then that we started planning for future national events and decided to allow outside sailmakers, but also to instill strict measuring of those outside sails.
<br>We have since decided to measure even the Hobie sails -- since they seem to have the most problems getting uniformity to their sailmaking.
<br>Are the outside sails always faster, you may ask? No! In the top ten finishers of the Wave Nationals, 70% of the sails were stock Hobie sails. Many non-Hobie sails were mid-pack or farther back in the pack. The winner did sail with his own design. That was Bob Curry using a Sabre Sail. Excuse me, but Bob is probably the best uni-rig sailor of all time in the world -- he could have won with a bedsheet.
<br>At the boat show in Miami, Hobie President, Doug Skidmore, told me there were some complaints about the other sails from some of the west coast "hot dogs" that had probably believed they would swoop into the southeast and "...take candy from babies." Most did not do very well. But, those folks ought to consider a couple of things:
<br>* There were a whole helluva lot of Hobie sails ahead of them, too.
<br>*factoit: of the 65 sailors at the Wave Nationals, 23 of them were at least past national champs in one class or another!
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<br>With the concept of making the boats pretty much all the same speed one needs to have a sailmaker design a sail for your particular need. For example, Charlie weighs 225 pounds while his wife, Nora, weighs 130. They both own Waves. Should Nora's boat have the same Hobie-issued sail as Charlie's? Well, if they did both have the same sail and it was not full, Charlie would not have a prayer of ever winning a race against Nora.
<br>On the other hand, if the Hobie-issue sail was full, then in heavier wind Nora could not hold the boat down and Charlie would dominate.
<br>If Nora acquired a flat sail, and Charlie acquired a full sail, they would both have the sail they needed for their weight and both would be about equal. Then it would depend on ability and decision making.
<br>If they simply settled for the Hobie sail that came with their boat -- a pig in the poke, you might say -- then these two sailors would not be even.
<br>I remember when I got out of the Tornado Class (where all sails came from any number of sailmakers, but all had to measure in) and bought a Hobie 18. Luckily, the first boat we bought had a pretty full sail, which was perfect for Mary and I (our overall weight exceeded 300 pounds most of the time), but then I would see other big folks with really flat sails -- they never had a chance.
<br>Funnier still was all the hotshots in the Hobie 18 fleet immediately had their new Hobie-issued sails recut by their friendly, local sailmaker. One-design? I think not!
<br>And one more item:
<br>We still have our Hobie-issued sails for all three of our Waves, and all but the one we bought this past December are already blown out. In other words, the sails that come with the boat will not last more than a year under normal use. Therefore, you need to replace them. I find the sailmakers that have taken an interest in the Wave Class offer their sails at very reasonable rates (probably less expensive than Hobie's sails), they are made of better material, and will last much longer.
<br>So, Margaret, I ask that you reassess your thinking about what is one-design and what isn't now that you are more informed. I know that most Hobie sailors have been totally brainwashed into believing that one-design means manufactur-supplied. But, that simply is not true. There are many more one-design classes that allow sailmakers than there are those that required company-supplied sails.
<br>Those of us involved in the Wave class are truly seeking to level the playing field and revive one-design sailing.
<br>Thanks,
<br>Rick White
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