HI,

I am looking for a Hobie Wave or 14 to get back into sailing. Nice and simple is the thought - want something for the kids to learn on and for me to enjoy without testing my rusty skills too much. I am in Jupiter, Florida and would be willing to travel to the Keys, north to Melbourne and west to the Gulf to pick one up in good condition, at the right price (natch!) and preferably with a trailer so that I don't have to find one (but I could so if you have a Wave/14 for sale without a trailer, please respond).

Any advice from the members here in what to look for when buying or if I am looking at the wrong boats (I have sailed a Wave but never a 14) would be appreciated. Also any leads on places to find a used Wave/14 would be great.

Thanks!

James

Hi James,

This has to be a shorter answer than I put on your other thread (compare/contrast the Wave & H14). If you buy a used Wave, check for soundness of the hulls--unlikely to be a problem and good condition of the rigging. Be aware that the rigging on a Wave often seems sloppier than on the 14; this is intentional and the fact that the leeward shroud line (the mast side-stay) seems loose isn't necessarily bad. The newer shroud's hook to the hulls with a little clamp kind of arrangement that has a hole for a ring to lock them on--if you don't have that hole, I recommend new shrouds or taping the clamps with electrical tape. We did have the leeward shroud come unhooked once with our old shrouds that didn't take the locking ring--way more exiting than we needed; fortunately, my wife was with me and got it back on without a problem--I shudder to think if it had been one of the kids with me or just me....

On the 14, the main problem is likely to be soft spots in the hulls. The fiberglass shell tends to delaminate from the foam core and although this is repairable if it's not too bad (there's various techniques discussed here and in other forums), it's a pain to deal with if you have a lot of them or they're severe.

Be sure to also check the bottom of the hulls on the 14 as they can get pretty worn down depending upon how they're handled and what they've been dragged over or scraped on. You may need to apply another layer of fiberglass cloth to the bottom to fix it up.

Checking for sound rigging applies too (except that the 14 doesn't attach the lower end of the shrouds in the same way so that particular issue won't come up).

Good luck!

John,

Again, thank you. I am familiar with fiberglass work as I repair my surfboarrds all the time, but I have kayaks also and am in love with rotomolded plastic - it is so durable!

Thanks for the tip about the shrouds. I have ordered a book on basic cat sailing as all my experience is with monohulls. It has a section on buying used although I doubt it includes these newer cats.

We have a dealer here (about 3 hours away) with a very lightly used Getaway Demo, but the price is $7100 plus a trailer (has the wings). Ouch. He also has a 2006 demo Wave for $3400 no trailer. I have checked classifieds for Getaways and the used ones come in pretty close to that so I think he is probably in line with the norm. Just a bunch of cash to lay out. But I am hearing really good things about the Getaway. Just a hard decision to make between the Wave and Getaway. The Getaway offers so much more but the Wave seems simpler all around. Maybe I am mistaken??

I couldn't find in the rules where it said I couldn't post a note about a boat for sale, so... I have a Wave available fairly cheap. I posted some pics of it on this forum when I got it as I was able to crease the starboard hull's bow. It's pretty straight now, has the bow cross bar installed and doesn't seem to affect sailing at all. I figure all I did by screwing it up was kill the resale. Let me know if you're still looking.
Tom