Gee Wouter, if you listen to steve ------ at "Hobie" in New South Wales, You would swear that the tiger was the first, the one, and the only.
Darryl J Barrett

Don't laugh, Berny and Bob, We have done just that in the past, ie given away cats just to get them represented interstate. In 1981 we gave a 4.4 Alpha Omega to Bob Lawrence in NSW (a top international sailor on many classes of cats, notably NACRAS, Tornado's and early on a national champion on windrush's) on the condition that he campaigned it "vigourlessly" in NSW ( he actually sold about thirty boats for us from that cat). and we also gave a 4.3 Sundance to a top Windrush sailor in Victoria for the same reasons with similar results in 1981. We gave two 5m Sundances to sailors in NSW in 1980, one at Kurnell and the other at Litho in the blue mountains, and all of them payed for themselves many times over.
Darryl J Barrett.

I'm not laughing Darryl, quite the contrary, I would be only too happy to help promote your new boat here, first one free that is.
Bern

>>Thanks Wouter, I think? Great response.

Thank you in return.

>>Mate ... insight into promotion, such that I suspect you probably have special skills in that area.

Not really. I'm a control systems engineer and that is pretty far away from marketing and stuff. How ever it does build heavily on analysing skills. Maybe that is it. And I always have been interested in human behaviour and psychology.


>>There's no doubt that my 14ft project was a 'heart' thing and not a 'head' thing.

Well, consolation is that other designs are design almost identical 14's to yours. That means that you achieved a benchmark in 14 foot design. Some of us are working on 14's on the side and the things I've done indicate that your 430 is right on the cube-square law that puts its performance very high up the scale indeed. The other 14's are intended to come out right at these specs. Darryls 14 sounds like just the same. And three independent design can't be wrong can they.

I still believe that road to succes lies in heavy involvement in building a class but the design themselfs are no reason for possible failure.


>>...and in some cases people were demonstrably hostile toward the boat/concept.

Yep, that is what we encountered sometimes as well. Till the tide turned and the same people started realizing that they were going to miss the boat (so to say). We have 1 or 2 fanatics that rather than and accept being wrong but they are insignificant. The games is to a large extent about status quo and breaching it.


>>.... I needed help, I couldn't do it all on my own but alas, none was forthcoming.

That was the best thing we got going early on. We started out as a small group and most stayed and completed the long run of 3 years. We had great input from some very skilled persons. Otherwise I don't think we would have made it. Believe me we had some tough negociations behind the scenes; but always came out with a fair a balanced compromise that everybody felt comfortable about although not always jubilant.

Some people look at the rules and bitch about how some rules are a bit weird (although I disagree with that profoundly). What they don't see is the time and effort that went in to get thiss ruleset as it is. That sometimes we had to make a compromise (example : mast length limit) or risk failing altogether. We as a group are proud to have been able to keep any real limiting rules out of the rule set considering the attacks endured.

Point being; you have to work hard and compromise now and then to keep support and help forthcoming. Without it; the future of the class is in danger.


>>I still get great satisfaction winning the club championship and wupping all other 14's, most 15's and some 16's. Sailing a 14ft performance cat off the wire amongst a fleet of cats & monos is something to be experienced and I get to do it every Satdy.

Fair winds to you ! That IS the spirit I admire so much.

>>I am concerned however that notwithstanding the experience I have had, there are two more 14ft boats being built/designed here in Australia which will further fragment an already somewhat tragic over supply situation so I don't see things getting any better for manufacturers here in the near future. Oh well!

They only way out is by going formula and work actively at getting all three designers on board. There is potential.

Bern

If you listen to some of the sailors on the beaches here you think there is only one catamaran design in the whole wide world. I think you know about which design we are talking.

Than catamaran sailing started with the same design even though it really started with the Proud brother in the UK and the shearwater catamaran (quite succesful in its own right) somewhere very early 50's or later 40's. Of course that same only real design revolutionized catamaran design into what we know it to be today. That when the Tornado (still the best best today) was designed and build by Rodney Marsh, Reg White and Terry Pearce in 1966 and already entered olympic competition in 1972. I competed in a IRYU trail in 1966 with 17 other B-class catamarans from all over the world. Hobie inc started a year later in 1967 and thus after the launch of the Tornado as we know it. I think the "only catamaran in the world" was launch in 1970.

With respect to to Tiger design ; It entered production in 1995 (I beleive that was the prototype launch)

http://www.yachte.com.au/classes/hobie.asp

Read some more about the events leading to Tiger here :

http://f18-international.org/bboats.htm

http://f18-international.org/history.htm

Please Notice how : Alado F18 (1st), Mattia Flash (2nd), Dart Hawk (3rd) went before the birth of the Hobie Tiger. I remember the Diam to be 4th and the last one to go before the Tiger F18.

Tiger may have been the first in Aus, I don't know, but that is all.

Wouter

Hey Wouter if your going to go back to the true roots of catamaran designs then you have to go back and give full credit to the polynesians who were succesfully crossing oceans in a multitude of multihulled designs hundreds of years ago, in fact the first "Hobie14" that Hobie Alta "designed was in Hawii, and it was a direct copie of an old polynesian design that can still be seen sailing around polynesia now. The only differences are that he made, as at that time he was into surfing and shaping, was that he made it out of fibreglass. aluminum, and dacron/polyester cloth (with the intention of "going surfing on it - not sailing"). Of course he upset the inherent stability of the original craft by stepping a much higher and larger sail area than the, basic lanteen style rig that the originals had/have. But then you have to realy go back to where the polonesians got the ideas from and that dates back much much further to THEIR origins. They originated somewhere around the red sea from where the true origins of the "kaffamoran" (as its original name was/is) stem from. So just who today can even try to "lay claim" for the inovation of the catamaran? I think any one later than the east indian Dutch, the portugese, or the british (at the time of Captain Cook) can only say that they have made "changes to an age old principle? ( It's just my opinion, but, I have always considered that the Prout brothers set the true adaptation of good, stable, efficient, catamaran design, back at least 20 years with the commercial success of their hull and rig designs and particularly with their mast stepping positions that made them incorectly increase excessively the forward bouancy of their bows. I will always get arguments with that and also that I rate "Warram" even lower on the scale). How's them apples chappies???
Darryl J Barrett

I wouldn't be surprised if the polynesians got their ideas from lashing logs together. A very ingenious bunch, the polynesians. They were light years ahead of capt. cook in terms of performance though.
Hobie got his idea for the asymetrical hull from Woody Brown's designs which are still sailing in Hawaii today.
Woody is in his 90s and still surfs. He told me that he came up with the assy. hull on his own, and that he pioneered putting the fin on a surfboard. He was also in the first group to surf Sunset.
Ironic that a symetrical deep v actually out performs the asymetric deep v hull. looks like they overthought that one.

Hey Guys, Don't forget the Irish.
See: http://www.multihullsmag.com/boats/chronology_of_multihulls.htm

Wouter is right about the Tiger. I raced a Dart Hawk from 1997 to 2001 and the Hawks seemed to be the big fleet in the early years.

Then just what is it about the excessively heavy Hobie Tiger that makes so many dudes want to sail the thing? I mean in preference to all the other F18's available. I guess that with the mimimun weight they've adopted it don't really matter a whole lot which boat they choose but they still go for the Hobie.
Maybe this is a post for another forum.
Bern

>>They only way out is by going formula and work actively at getting all three designers on board. There is potential.

Please expand on that statement Wouter.

tanx,
Bern