I recently sailed in the Australian Hobie Nationals and a boats dolphon striker started to crack big time. But the thing is when they were putting it on after their 4 hour drive to get it, a guy there talked about hull alignment and i was wondering how critical is it to have them completly square. I heard that a guy cut down his front beam so he can point higher and even though he got kicked out it made me wonder. It shouldn't matter that it is square because if your sailing a 16 properly the hull should only be just skimming. Is this right or have i just gone right past it.

Jules

I have pieced together a number of Hobie 14's for people over the last 5 year. My opinion is that hull alignment is important for speed at any point of sail. I know two Hobie dealers that have alignment jigs they use. They make their hulls as parallel as possible. No "tow-in", no special camber angles, just parallel.

I welded an aluminium jig for myself. Technically, you could just take a 4 meter piece of PVC pipe, measure and mark on the pipe the distance between the two front hull pylons. Take the pipe to the back of the boat and compare.

Where do the pylons in the back of the boat land on the pipe in comparison to the front. Pitch and camber, you will have to you a carpenter square and level.