I know many of the regulars here are hard-core F-18 racing types, so none of this will be news to you. This review is for recreational sailors and racers of older Hobies who want to know more about what sailing a Tiger is like.

A little about me. I’ve sailed since I was a kid, first getting hooked on my uncle’s Cougar catamaran on Clear Lake in Iowa in the 1960’s. I also spent quite a bit of time on my dad’s 18 foot P-Cat (Pacific Catamaran) on Fern Ridge Reservoir near Eugene Oregon. I clearly recall a Hobie 18 with two on the trapeze smoking by the heavy solid-deck P-Cat one day and wondering “what the heck was that?” After a long break from sailing, I got a Hobie 18 about seven years ago and have sailed it in the Denver area. I’m mostly a recreational sailor, but I like to go fast. Most of what follows should be viewed as a comparison between the Tiger and the Hobie 18 that I’ve been sailing.

I got a used Tiger in August and have had it out a few times now. It’s a 2000 model with self-tacking jib, spinnaker, and an end-pole snuffer.

Upon launching the boat, the first thing I noticed was that tacking was simply not a problem. The boat tacks almost as easily as a monohull. No special timing is needed with jib sheeting to help push the bows across the eye of the wind. In fact, with the self-tacking rig, you can pretty much ignore the jib altogether and just tack. Yes, you still have to be careful not to throw the tiller over too far, but that’s about it.

Upwind performance is supurb, and reaching is lots of fun like on most catamarans. Like a good sports car, you feel more in control on the Tiger at speed, not less in control. A light touch is called for on the tiller because the boat responds quickly. This is not to say that the boat is squirley, it’s simply very responsive. Driving from the trapeze is a blast, but I think I’m going to add a foot strap near the rear beam so I don’t go off-balance forward as easily.

Now for the real fun. I’m already a total spinnaker addict. That third sail more than doubles the fun of the boat. I’ve already found myself sailing upwind in order to have an excuse to pop the spinnaker downwind. On light air days, it feels almost like you are creating your own wind as you scoot by the other boats that are nearly dead in the water. This great light wind performance means I won’t be as inclined to sit out the less windy days now. On windier days, woooo-hooooo. It’s a whole new world of downwind speed.

Not having sailed an asymmetric spinnaker before, I was a little concerned about how hard it would be to handle. Aside from setting and dowsing, it works mostly like a really big jib. Setting and dowsing are not especially difficult and just take a few seconds of hand-over-hand pulling on the correct line to haul the sail up or down. Steering so as to blanket the spinnaker a bit with the mainsail can make the job easier on your crew in a recreational situation.

To control your heal angle with the spinnaker up is essentially the reverse of upwind sailing – head up to power up, head down to power down. Since you get lee helm with the spinnaker up, the boat tends to power down when you let it go where it wants to go, providing the same kind of automatic safety as weather helm when going upwind. The crew stays busy the whole time trimming the spinny so luff is just shy of curling – ease it till it curls, then ease back in. My wife/crew gets a big kick out of this, especially if there is enough wind for her to trapeze – and it doesn’t take much wind with the spinny up.

I got both a pin-top and a square-top main with the boat, both the original yellow type. I have to say the shape of the pin-top leaves a lot to be desired, but the square-top is a beauty. I can easily get the leach to open up on the square-top by cranking on the downhaul. Not so the pin top. So, even with a lot of area up high, the square-top is easier to depower and generally more controllable. I guess the point is that you don’t just get more power with these new sail shapes and high-ratio downhauls, you get better control. That’s a really good thing for recreational sailors in an area like where I live where the weather conditions can change rapidly.

I had the opportunity to right my Tiger for the first time recently. The capsize was totally due to inattention as I fussed with my glasses strap. Fortunately, my glasses stayed on as I slid off the tramp and into the lake. The boat drifted around so the mast was pointing to windward. I got on the bow and swam it around so the bow was pointing to windward while the crew leaned on the righting line (he was the lighter of the two of us). The wind filled in nicely under the main. I then swam back and added some pressure on the dagger, legs still in the water, and up she came, still pointed into the wind. The wind was blowing around ten knots, and our total crew weight was about 340 lbs. We weren't applying as much leverage as we could have. The wind did most of the work. Overall, an easier job than I was expecting.

Parts of the boat will be familiar to Hobie sailors. The rudders are standard Hobie. Tiller connections are Hobie 20 style. The furler is the same as on the 18. Inserting the dagger boards on the Tiger is much slicker than on the 18 since they are vertical and have no tendency to bind. The mainsail latch at the masthead is a simple pin-in-hole arrangement and works just fine. You turn the mast to one side to keep the pin out of the hole to get the sail down, and center it towards the sail to get it to latch.

Rigging time for the Tiger is a bit longer than the 18 because of the spinnaker. I expect our speed will improve with practice, but there will still be more things to do. I’m still looking for better ways to find the patches for running the dousing line.

Handling on the beach is easier in one sense because the Tiger is lighter and easier to move about, but more challenging in another in that the keel is more delicate and requires some protection from the abrasive effects of sand. I’ve used throwable cushions with a bungie as well as “big noodles” to protect the hulls on the beach. Both work well. Beach wheels are also an option. The hulls are less forgiving of certain types of abuse than some older Hobies, which can be a minus for recreational types. I think the extra speed/fun is worth it.

Jeff,

Thanks very much for talking the time to write your review.

My graduation to the Tiger was via a Hobie 18 Magnum, then a Hobie 18SX with spinnaker. We put the spinnaker on the 18SX, thinking it would give us the opportunity to learn how to fly it for a season before we bought a Tiger. With hindsight I would now have gone straight from the Hobie 18 to the Tiger - handling the spinnaker is much easier with a mid pole snuffer system than a bag launch, particularly in a recreational situation. A spinnaker bag also takes up a chunk of real estate on the tramp.

The Tiger is an absolute joy to sail in comparison to the older boats, particularly tacking. We did a distance race on the 18SX that involved over 70 tacks up a narrow channel, and my crew was mutinous by the end of that experience. On the Tiger all they have to do is swap sides, and the tramp is so clean there is nothing to get hung up on or scratch yourself.

And spinnakers on a beach cat? We were talking about that down the beach yesterday - once you have a 'chute it is very hard to imagine life without it (apart from an A-Cat). Much easier to handle than I expected - and versatile over a really wide wind range.

Go Tigers!

Chris.

Man.... you guys are making me want to pull out my checkbook!

-Rob V.
Panama City
Nacra 5.2

If you have lee helm with the spinnaker up on a Tiger, you had better rake your mast back more or check your rudders. That will happen when you add a big spin. to a non-spin design, like my old Nacra 5.5Sl. But the new boats (F18's, I 20's) that were designed with spins are very well ballanced with the spin up, usually have a very neutral helm going down wind.

The trick is to go downwind on one hull as long as possible, when it starts to come down, head up, fly the hull and continue to bear off as the speed builds. This is when most spin boats stuff so be careful if you are practicing in big wind. The very act of bearing off with a full spin will push the lee bow down, until you get some speed up and get it stabilized. You have the full weight of the boat, both crew and the full sail plan (spin included) pressing down on that lee bow, which is pretty skinny on most F18's.

That's why I love the Inter 20, with those big, fat, long bows, when you double trap downwind, you really have to try to stuff it. Still it's almost impossible unless it's really blowing. You just don't see too many I20's pitchpolling. You will see some F18's stuff, do you have footstraps back there to keep you at the back of the boat when it happens? Get some if you don't, and get some beach wheels before you destroy the bottoms!

That was quite the review. It could pass as an advertisement straight from the Hobie Marketing Department. Are you Matt Miller in a Zorro mask ?

I have to agree the Tiger is a cool racing machine. I have a Hobie 18 Magnum in a Fleet where we have at least a dozen h-18s. About two years ago, about five went over to the Tiger side and the boat has been a blast. I've raced with my bud, Jon at both H-18 one design and F-18 class races, and they've always been a blast. Certainly this boat is a nice step-up for experienced sailors.

I must have missed the email offering a special price on these boats, so I stayed with the Hobie Magnum, and I keep on rationalizing to myself that it's really what I need: A comfortable, dry, stable boat. But, it's kind of hard to keep your chin up when your buds sail by you and beat you to the next downwind beach bar (I can stay up with them on a beat) by at least fifteen minutes on a one-hour run.

I understand you can get wings for them; I guess that would put it up to about $15k. We already slide them in the water off the trailer and hook them up to a mooring pin to reduce wear.

A great boat; I just have to figure out if it's worth the $15k to me because I wouldn't cruise on one of these things without wings anymore.

Wyatt

We have a few Tigers left Rob, could even get it here for the final fall series! By the way great sailing on the H20 the other day with Scott!

Thanks,
Brad Stephens
www.sunjammers.com
Hobie Division 15 Chairman
Authorized Hobie/Vanguard/Hunter Dealer
brad@sunjammers.com
850-235-2281
Panama City Beach, FL

Thanks Brad,
I will be out crewing for Scott again on the final fall series... I think. It was a lot of fun crewing and at the helm of the H20. That thing sails like a dream next to my 5.2 . I got some great ideas from you all with rigging my boat.
BTW, I'm ready to pull out the checkbook, but the checkbook is not ready for me to pull it out. It needs a few more zeros in the balance column. After sailing with you all, I am definately leaning towards a Hobie again. The only previous experience I had on hobies were some really old H16s that were obviously poorly tuned. They felt sluggish and wanted to PP anytime you powered it up. The Tiger sounds really nice, but I need something that can take a beating as demonstrated by my rounding the windward mark on the last race. I still think I was right as far as the rules go, but it's never fun banging up a guys boat in which the mainsail cost twice as much as my whole boat. Scott was super cool about it. It frustrated me and I went from first to the weather mark, to a solid third out of three at the finish. That's my excuse anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

-Rob V. aka "Crash"
Panama City
Nacra 5.2