Hi Wouter,
It is a bit of a mystery why everyone professes a love of one-design (the pluses are self-evident) yet the classes get very fractured at the upper end of the beach cat spectrum. In our area the H20 almost killed off the TheMightyHobie18 class. As I understand it because I wasn't there, the H20 was developed to respond to the Nacra 18. The Nacra 20 was then developed to respond to the H20. When the I20 came out it decimated the H20 fleet in my area. Now the I20 fleet is suffering as it lost members to the 18HT boats. My point is that a lot of skippers at this level are looking for the next home run boat; to show up with the lastest and greatest.

When I got my H20, I was in awe of it, but I noticed that it didn't get any respect at the regattas as everyone was "cooing" over the I20s; my boat and I were definitely "not happening"

This pattern will continue forever, I think. When I got into cat racing I always wondered why the cat sailors didn't maintain long time fleets (the H16 being possibly the only exception). In dinghy racing one can think of many examples; Lightning, Snipe, Lazer, Albacore, Flying Scot...some of these boats are over 60 years old and have only slightly, slowly evolved. People race them their whole lives. Cat sailors seem to be different--but I think I'm touching on a new thread here.

David
H20 781

here it is

The H20 sailors on the coasts have switched to the Tiger or other spin boats, but in the middle of the country, the 20 is still very strong. It's probably the fastest growing boat in our fleet (61 in Denver) and is very popular in other Midwest states. Of the 35 to 45 Hobies that show up at our regattas, about 25 percent or more are H20s.

On a different subject: Hey, Jake. I think an upwind race between an I20 and an H20 would be very close, but without a head-to-head test, it's impossible to tell (the gauntlet is thrown!)
See ya on the water!

That is almost certainly true

David,
I agree with a lot of you're saying. I think if you look at some of the long-standing one-design classes you'll see classes that had occaisional updates to the boats, gear, or sailplan. Compare a Star class boat to what it was in the beginning. If it hadn't changed, it would have died. What I see in the one-design classes for cats is a hard core nothing changes attitude, and the boats begin to fail to capture the imagination and passion of the sailors.

When I sailed my 18, I mused quite a bit about an add-on package that would pump the boat up a bit. I didn't want to have an 18 that was as fast as some other boat, I just thought there were some things that could make a more enjoyable and up to date version. Similar things to what you mentioned - removable daggerwell inserts to allow use of higher aspect boards, a spin package, and a modernization of the sail plan. As a package it could be added to the boats for HC racing and removed for OD. If it gained wide enough acceptance the change kit might make it back into the one design some day. I did add a spin to that boat, and I can say it is an addictive thing.

When I had my 20, I used to think about how easy it would be to do a simple modernization of the sail plan, along the lines of what was done for the Tornado. Change the cut of the main to a square, make the jib self tacking, and add a modern cut high aspect spinnaker. I never wanted to do this simply to keep up with the I-20s, I just thought the boat would be really nice to sail in that config, and such a beautiful boat deserves a modernization once and awhile. And I honestly think it could add new life to the class, but that's just me. Forget adding a carbon spar or other costly things. You could still do a removable insert for the wells to run different boards.

Now people say "requiring new sails would kill the class" - only if the new sails are prohibitively expensive or require expensive updates to the platform. Many OD racers replace their sails very often, so honestly buying new sails shouldn't be an issue. Keep the area low on the spinnaker, but make it a more efficient cut, and you shouldn't scare off the mixed teams either. For that reason, the Tiger set-up is probably ideal, also considering it comes from Hobie.

But again, I wouldn't make the emphasis on being faster boat for boat with the I-20s. I would concentrate on modernizing the boat in a reasonable way the builds on the strengths of the design and the people that want to sail it. Add the mods up for your handicap, show people how nice it is, and maybe it will catch on.

As for no mods made ever for the 20 or other one design classes, I can only what a shame. Class designs should be able to reasonably update with the times.

I still like the 20 and definitely had fun going head to head with you David! But I must admit I love my 6.0...

Indeed the H20 is a beautiful boat with a good following in some areas. I dont think there are any new ones being sold(correct me if Im wrong), so the class may want to invigorate itself. I think you should start with a new main and jib, leave everything else alone. See how the class rsponds to these changes. Put out a poll, or sail the boat DPN with the new sail package. If you are not sailing with a fleet of 20's, then do what you want. Make the boat more exciting and attractive for you. If you start kicking booty, then maybe it will catch on.

Have fun!

David
F18

Hi David
Just some food for thought about the H20 mast and potential sail plan revisions.

I believe the presence of a comp tip is a real challenge for a sail maker in designing a square top sail. If the rumor mill was accurate. The Hobie Fox suffered in the US because it also had a comp tip and the development of the sail never quite got it right (flexi tip caused the leech to open prematurely). Alternatively, the head to head with the I20 always demonstrated that the larger sails on the I20 trumped the Fox's F20 sail plan. The San Diego sailors should be able to comment on the Fox with a comp tip and the square top and spin versus the I20.

I have never seen a Fox on the water so I have absolutely no first hand knowledge if any of this proved to be true.

Finally with respect to spin size. Texel and ISAF seem to favor 24 sq meter chutes for 20 foot boats. The Tornado chute of 25 sq is considered oversized by texel. The I20 chute is 24 sq meters and the NE 100 chute of 28 sq if memory is correct.

For what its worth... the 25 sq m chutes are hard work in a breeze (you don't want to do 4 hours of racing with them)

The NE 100 chutes frequently use a doublers for distance races. (not double ratchets).

Finally, the High aspect jibs on the Tornado and I 20 are useless going downwind alone without a chute. (That's why you will see the I20's avoid hot reaches to sail high and then pop the chute to get down on odd ball courses.)

Take Care
Mark

>>Finally, the High aspect jibs on the Tornado and I 20 are useless going downwind alone without a chute. (That's why
you will see the I20's avoid hot reaches to sail high and then pop the chute to get down on odd ball courses.)


I don't fully agree here.

The selftacker may be less efficient on the downwinders but never useless. "Useless" suggests that you can just as well saile without it on the downwinders and that is certainly not true. Also I very much believe the reason for the loss of a little speed on the downwinders is to be found in the cut of the selftacker jibs. Selftackers are still exclusively used on spi boats and here the jibs are complete cut to optimized upwind sailing by sarcrifising the reach and downwind performance when sailing without a jib. This all has nothing to do with being high aspected or not not even with the selftacker setup itself. It is a direct result of the flatter cut od these spis when compared to jib on non spi boats.

I found signs for this on some personal experiences between my Taipan F16 and standard Taipans. Especially since me first jib was cut a little to full for a spi boat. It would collapse when I pointed with the standard Taipans and so I lost there. However on reaches and downwinders I was quite alright. Only on deep downwinders the standard boats gained ever so slowly on me. I won't go into details. Experience gained during touring stages of this summers DCC in 4 - 14 knots of wind.

The specs of the boats were

Standard Taipan

jib 4.15
main 14.56

total 18,71 sq. mtr.

Taipan F16
jib 3.45 sq.mtr (May be larger under F16 rules but construction limits prevent this)
Main 14.85

Total 18.30 sq. mtr.


So I was sailing with 0.41 sq. mtr. (4.5 sq. ft.) less area in total.

I'm recut the luff curve and I think I gained upwind performance against some loss on the downwind legs. I think the reaches will still be relatively all right maybe a small loss here.

If anything, we can take away from this that entlarging the square-top and putting a selftacker on can result in about the same performance as the overlapping jibbed boat with a pinhead main. Actually I found the differences to be so small that they may all be caused by errors in trim and balance. I know for certain that I sailed the DCC event with to much prebend and the middle section of my mainsail wasn't working optimally. I saw the tell tales in the middle do funny things but only realized in the last week what the cause had to be.

Wouter

Didn't the Nacra 6.0 add a spinnaker option a few years ago. How has that effected the 6.0 class?

Actually
They did not add the spin option to the boat and as a result the class is not able to sustain much one design interest at the national level.

The class is much like the Hobie 20 and the majority of boats are likely to be the same age eg 5 to 10 years old.

Sailors are faced with the age old debate... The boat is nearing the end of its racing life... Do I replace it with the same boat... change classes or change the kind of sailing that I do.

What's your advice Hobiezealot?
Mark

Actually they did - the New England guys created their specs with the spinnaker and asked Performance Cat to adopt it and make it an option on the boat. Perf did adopt a spinnaker option for the 6.0NA but they went their own way ignoring the work done by the New England group. I don't know of anyone that ever purchased the factory spinnaker option on the 6.0.

How has that effected the class in the New England Area?

Well...it's hard to point fingers at anything concrete but it seems that most of the folks that sailed 6.0's in the Tybee500 began to ask themselves why they aren't sailing Nacra 20s. The 6.0NA class is still relatively strong in the North East, Florida Pan handle, and Texas.

I can say that all the sailors were pretty disappointed that Performance chose not to support the New England package but I'm not sure that it had any real negative effect on the class. My opinion is that the 6.0 class is in a pretty serious downswing at the moment and that the majority of that is due to the Nacra 20's strength in offshore ability and health of it's own class. At least around here, if you're going to sail a 20 footer, the Nacra 20 is the only game in town unless you want to sail by yourself.

^ Jake hit the nail on the head.

We just recently moved from a 6.0 to a N20. I personally felt the N20 was a more complete boat. It was designed from the start with a spinnaker, whereas the 6.0 its always been an "add-on."

When racing head to head against the N20's, it always seemed that we were struggling to get the spinnaker tuned just right. We had custom sails cut for it, made adjustments in every little direction, but in the end, its just smart, I think, to go with a system thats been setup by the factory.

This is not just the age-old debate -- it is also the "old-age" debate, because most of the cat sailors are getting older, along with their boats. That has an influence on the questions they ask and the decisions they make.

I watched the New England 6.0 spinnaker issue with much interest as it showed a strong regional attachment to the boat and a desire to let it evolve somewhat. I was impressed with the NE skippers getting those specs put together. My guess is that Rick Bliss was probably one of the driving forces in getting that done. The existence of the N20 (I20) made by Nacra, however, means that the factory probably won't fully embrace the boat—they have a new boat to sell as their hot 20 footer. My thinking is that with the Fox out of the picture the only 20 foot racing boat Hobie has is the Miracle 20. Since this is Hobie’s representation in this prestigious class it would make some sense to let upgrades happen. Certainly, I recognize that one has to do this very carefully so as to not alienate (by making obsolete) the current H20 owners.

As Keith Chapman and Dave Mosley said it might work to establish some evolutionary and cost effective changes; then apply an adjusted Portsmouth rating to them and allow them to run alongside the current design to allow time for skippers to adopt. If the changes get accepted, they could then become the new specs for the class. Sails get replaced, a spinnaker could be added, and maybe dagger board inserts are not too expensive to consider. Is this practical?

The comp tip may be a problem when considering a square top main; I never thought of that issue. If a new mast were required to enable the sail to perform, I doubt this would work as skippers wouldn't easily be convinced to buy new masts.

SteveT, I know you approved of Matt’s statement that there will be no H20 changes, but, since you are in an area with H20 strength, do you see any scenario where the skippers would support modernization changes to the H20 in order to make Hobie’s 20 footer more competitive?

I’m a business man, so ultimately I know that the factory has to believe changes to the boat will stimulate new boat sales (or significant sales of upgrades) or there is no reason for them to pursue any changes.

I'm happy with the boat the way it is. If I want to sail a 20-foot cat with a spinnaker, I'll get an Inter 20. In a region with a strong H20 fleet, there is no reason to make any changes - beyond very minor ones - as everyone is already sailing an equal boat. I think the H-20 fleet has several seasons left before the Tiger finaly takes over in this area, (I'll probably be one of the first in my fleet to make the switch in 2006).

In the mean time, I don't see any reason to make changes to the class so it's competitive with another brand of boat. As I said in an earlier post, if I want to do more distance races, I'll add a spinnaker or buy a boat designed with one as part of the class.

Is the H20 strong enough to carry a spinnaker now?

Around 1995, I receive my former H20 with a replacement hull, then received 3 replacement hulls from Hobie for a former H20, and had to buy the fourth one, over a period of around 3 years, as they broke one at a time. Hobie always gave me the same reason why it failed. But over three years, one would think they would have changed their excuse or method of construction?

What is the competitive lifespan of a H20 now?

Plenty strong for a spinnaker. A 20 did the Worrell with mast head chute years ago in the roughest year. They used some running backstays I think.

The issue with the 20 hulls failing along the glue seam in the mid 90's was corrected and has not been a problem since. That was a post/hand finishing problem. The finising guys were sanding through the layup trying to fair out the seam because the glue jigs were mis-aligned.

>>The issue with the 20 hulls failing along the glue seam in the mid 90's was corrected and has not been a problem since. That was a post/hand finishing problem. The finising guys were sanding through the layup trying to fair out the seam because the glue jigs were mis-aligned.<<

Matt, what I find incredulus is over the period of THREE years (replacing THREE hulls sequentially),
it took 3 years (& 3 hulls) to figure that out?........IMPRESSIVE

What is funny is EVERY time/year, I replaced a hull, they told me the SAME story you told me for THREE years?

After the THIRD time getting the same story made me wonder, how are those finishing guys keeeping their jobs?

Holiday cheers,
Chris