Hello,

Sail arrived today, many thanks to Mr. T-bone from Washington State for the donation. Now for a technical question, which is critical to Surfergirl sailing.

As written by the president of Hobie, do not race her or place strain on the hulls otherwise bow failure may occur, which may be tragic.

Please best suggestions for low speed, minimum flexing of hulls, I have received the following recommendations, but seek the wisdom of the group.

1: Sail with no jib.
2: Sail with main sail half hoisted.

Now for the group, once again minimum speed and stresses is the goal.

Mike

We're talking Hobie-14, right? Don't put the turbo rig on it (jib and traps and all), but that wasn't an option when that boat was made anyway. You might consider adding the dolphin striker kit to shore up the front cross beam, but that wouldn't be original.

Are there reasons from a survey perspective that make you uneasy - ie soft spots, cracks, loose pylons, obvious structural flaws? If so address those best you can, and don't sail it unless you've addressed them to your satisfaction. If you've addressed that, I'm not sure there's much to worry about. I might not take it out in the big surf, but I'm not sure you need other restrictions on protected water. Make sure that bolts and rivets and attachments are in good shape - if suspect in any way replace them - upgrade if necessary and maybe don't worry if it's original, more is on the line here. Make sure the mast is sealed. And think through what you would do if something did happen, both from a perspective of securing the vessel and arranging rescue if needed. All things to consider whenever you sail.

From the Hobie company perspective they don't want you to sue their a##es off if something happens and you can tie it to their advice on using the boat- so they will err on the cautious side and tell you to park it, especially if they have not seen the boat in person. If you want to sail you need to make the survey and ascertain the condition. Pay a surveyor to look at it if you really need an opinion. YOU need to make the decision to sail it, don't sue me either!

That all having been said, one of the loads the foredecks will take is when you sheet the main hard - the resulting tension on the forestay and angle of the bridle wires will tend to pull the bows together and up. You can help this by changing the geometry of the fore rig by shortening the forestay and lengthening the bridles so the loads pull more up than together, or consider the possibility of running two forestays from the bridle attachments and eliminating the bridles alltogether. You could also rig a pole between the bridle attachments to take the compression loads similar to the pole setup for the jib conversion for the H-17 sport. This would help some in mitigating some of the stresses on the hulls.

Don't sail it without proper safety gear - but that goes for any boat. If you fear for the platform and you don't have proper vest, throwables, wesuits, signal devices, radio, if doo-doo happens you get what you deserve. Don't add another ghost to the boat.

If the goal here is to preserve her for all eternity as a collectible, and you have any concerns about endangering that - park her and make a display.

My $0.02, I'm not an engineer, not to be construed as official blessing to go join hull-flying contests and surf the big ones... Your mileage may vary. Side effects may include headache and drymouth.

Keith,

More information than I could have hoped for, I use the following when taking on the wild. There are old Hobie people, there are bold Hobie people. There however is no old and bold hobie people.

I after reading Hobies letter, think it may be a hull decay (fiberglass hardening over the years) issue. The hulls have no soft area's and if you think about a hull sitting in the sun all foru seasons for 25
years it may be a possibility. This is undetectable, unless impact testing or stress cracking was performed (not feasible or practical).

I have inspected every screw, bolt etc etc. The only parts that was not salvagable was tramp and rubber gasket material in Plyons.

I have polyurthened the entire hull with 5 coats of primer and finishing coat, no mirco holes will be present at launch.

The configuation of sail you reccommended will be used, as well as safety issues including a buddy on powerboat as backup.

It's going to be like the Model "T" you see in parade, they run but do not go fast due to age.

Many Thanks

Mike