(So don’t argue about the Hobie 16 with spi ask yourself what are YOU doing to get youth sailing going in your area.)


Great point.On that note I see where the IHCA has appointed a new Youth co-ordinator.Brian Phipps,seems like a great choice.

Wouter does this guy on a 16 look familiar

Not to be picky, but isn't that what I said? I said:

"Hobie 16 for a couple more years. The SL16 is not available in sufficient numbers as yet. After that, it is one of the two boats available."

It sounds to me that he believes the Hobie 16 will be the boat for many years and not just a few. So who's the guy in the picture?

Bundock

WOW I BET THAT GUY KICKS TOTAL BUTT ON THE WATER BECAUSE THIS ONE TIME....

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HE SAILED A HOBIE 16!


You people are sounding ridiculous really.

"so and so is better because he sailed a H16 in his younger years"

"I can name four hundred and thirty two sailors that have won first places in regattas and never sailed a H16"

I think I'm going into Kidney failure.

I think you missed the point Maugan.Just having some fun with Wouter from a previous post.

Wow Wooter, Very impressive! I assume you were replying to my post not "Gary's"

My comments attempted to answer Gary's question "What am I missing here?" I offered the seasoned sailor's viewpoint about why all hobie 16s don't carry spinnakers- That is what I know.

The real problem here, as I see it, is that someone is trying to provide something that suits the whole world and that is impossible! Someone will always come up with a reason why the solution is crap.

Perhaps the answer is for Wouter Yachting to provide a fleet of F16s for the ISAF youth worlds. That oughta fix it......!

In my state, the Hobie Cat Association has independently set up a scheme to financially assist youth into Hobie 16 racing. Dedicated Hobie sailors have offered to coach them.

This christmas, I am taking a few days off to support a group of youth Hobie 16 sailors from my club at the national youth selection trials for the ISAF youth worlds, sailing the current youth boat - Hobie 16 with spinnaker.

Wouter, I'm doing my bit for youth catamaran sailing.....

are you?

Don't hold your breath waiting for the Yachting organisations to promote our sport. We can't even watch Olympic sailing on television!!! The most promotion of sailing that I see, is provided by one-design builders.

I'll bet you that the Hobie 16 is alive and kicking long after many of the current trendy designs are dead and buried!!!

Finally, spinnaker sailing is great fun but its not all there is.

By the way Wouter, just because the Hobie 16 is the selected youth class, doesn't mean that the whole promotion of youth multihull sailing is up to Hobie. How about you getting behind youth multihull sailing and encouraging kids to sail Hobie Cat 16s with spinnakers if you are so passionate about it? It is not just Hobie's responsibility.

So why is it that a youth boat must have a spinnaker?

The Hobie 16 makes a terrific youth boat - there are tons of them available and active. Practice and competition can be had on every lake and ocean. I don't see why we have to bastardize it by adding a spinnaker to a platform that was never designed for it (and a class that won't support it). Are we afraid that the kids might get bored with a main and jib? Let's not get too confused here - there are a few of us (and the bureaucracy) that gets bored with main and jib but even then, there is light years of information we would have to obtain to master sailing a 'simple' boat like the H16.

What have you been smoking??? It might explain your kidney problem. Nobody has said anything of the sort.

TigerMike

If this thread weren't so indicative of how fragmented a section of the sailing public we catsailors are and how self-destructive we seem to be, it would be amusing.

Catsailing is generally acknowledged to be in decline (despite the introduction of new designs and event formats), sailing in general is also in decline, worldwide, clubs are struggling to find members, events are increasingly poorly supported. We sail some of the fastest, most exciting boats on this planet and rather than band together and shout about how great it is and encourage new sailors - we gripe amongst ourselves, compare who's got the biggest d**ks, sails, spinnakers or whatever and put people off becoming part of this madhouse.

For Ch***'s sake give it a rest!

So ISAF has chosen the H16 again, so what! How about each National Authority fitting out 6 or so H16's with kites so that the kids can get some racing? How about some of the Cat Assocs. in each country getting together and doing some fundraising solely to promote the sport to youth sailors?

In the UK the Assocs have joined forces to set out their stall at the annual Dinghy Show in London in March each year. At last years show the stand had boats from Swell(2), Dart(2), Hobie(1), Tornado(1), Shearwater(1), Nacra (2) and I think a couple of others. Most importantly, there were reps from the Cat Clinic where the youth training is held and any young visitors to the stand were entered into a draw to get a 'multihull experience weekend' at the Cat Clinic. In addition they were taking bookings for kids to pay to get that same weekends sailing. There was also a charter scheme aimed at suitable youth sailors.

It may not have been the answer to everything but it's a start - it's where many of you - us - should be devoting our time and effort.

We can never beat ISAF or unduly influence them, we have to work with them if multihull sailing is to get the recognition and support it deserves, so why don't we do it wholeheartedly?

Hi all,

thanks for the reply Mal. Didn't want to start world cat wars, should have known better I suppose.

I was realy hoping somebody would tell me about a positive experience of sailing a Hobie 16 with spinnaker, but it looks like the feedback I have had is correct as nobody came up with anything to do with the enjoyment of our elite youth. This is no reflection on the boat without spinnaker, I have heard many say they enjoy the Hobie 16 without spinnaker and in the Northern states of OZ the numbers are on the water.

I just dream of seeing elite youth, rigging a hot looking spinnaker cat that they can lift the mast on and has controlable sail area for them when the wind is up, but would still give them the sort of apparent wind sailing thrills , that only a hot looking sailboard or 29er offers as a youth class at the moment .

These classes are out there but I guess as long as the ISAF wants to take the easy way out and get manafacturers to bank roll things. The elite youth are stuck with a package that doesn't realy teach them the sort of apparent wind sailing that will help them with the next step, on to the Olympic Tornado.

As for doing our part, as individuals in promoting cat sailing to youth, all we can do is continue to be happy to field the plethora of questions as they drool over our boats while we are rigging and continue to offer to take them sailing as I know many of us do and of course take our own kids out as our fathers did.

Regards Gary.

I see that the posters are focussing on my perceived inaction to discredit my other points.

Lets me assure you that I do both support and refer people to the Dutch youth sailing initiative. In the past I have actually setup up a youth program on beach cats myself and with a friend I arrange sponsorship by an IT company that we used to buy and maintain the boats. Youth and students could become members for only 250 US$ and use the boats. Sadly this project died after I left the program.

So in summary I think that I've earned my right to comment on these matters and I think you are totally silly to assume that I didn't do anything in this field. I'm not telling everything I do on thsi forum.

Wouter

Not true in the UK and a fair number of other countries I'd bet. IIRC we needed to IMPORT new 16's from France into the UK so that the squad could have boats to sail - A couple of the guys I know hated sailing the 16 and as soon as they could they moved up to the F18 and they are doing quite well ! They feel that the 16 held them back rig development, rig tuning and general sailing skills, only plus point was big fleet racing.

I don't want to end in a down beat way. So maybe there needs to be a selection of boats with a kite that can be used as qualifier boats. Then something that is then provided FOC by the ISAF for the events. Maybe The Spitfire/F18/F16 which have been designed to have a kite, the kids want to sail and is fun and a challenge to sail and not a challenge to stop pitchpoling.

Have to agree with Scooby here, in SA we have to import french H16`s, they are NOT affordable boats in light of the currency difference. New H16 retails for the price of an entry-level car. To say that lots of them are available is like saying you can buy a used Formula 1 car from 1979 and compete internationally. NOT. You won`t find that the top US teams that just sailed H16 WOrlds were training on boats with brightly coloured sails, aah, the 70`s were so cool. (NOT, again.)
Guys, stop bickering, we are all catsailors. ISAF has criteria which ONLY Hobie can satisfy from a financial perspective. This is unfortunate, but the truth, and is testimony to the Hobie`s marketing strategy, which NO-ONE else has been able to replicate. If competitors had to bring their own boats it would make events totally unaffordable, especially for youth.
If the purpose of ISAF youth Worlds is as a feeder class to the Tornado (current Olympic class), they wouldn`t be able to find a better boat than the Mosquito if they tried, but of course this is a class run by amateurs and has no capacity to produce 100 boats to be used at a Worlds. While some opinions state that the spinnaker is too much for youth sailors, here`s a thought :
Miles Webb & Darren vd Merwe - age 16, 2nd at Mosquito Nationals, 1st at the Triple Crown (beating Sean Ferry, Blaine Dodds and all other pre-H16 Worlds sailors) on line and Handicap(Mosquito gives H16 time). So is the kite too much for them?
From the regatta report : "With 6 of the 7 teams representing South Africa in the upcoming Hobie 16 Worlds sailing here today the competition was tough and I saw William and Lucinda Edwards beating Shaun Ferry and Michelle Le Sueur by about 1 meter, this after more than 2 hours of racing. Young Miles Webb and Darren vd Merwe made the most of the flat conditions on the downwind side of the course. Winning this regatta by more than 3 minutes after the handicap was applied is a very noteworthy occurrence. "

Here`s a real eye-opener : Daniel Snyman is 12. He sails Mosquito WITH SPI SINGLE-HANDED . Sure, he runs into trouble at 15knots, but the more he perseveres the less he will struggle, and when it`s less than 15knots he is quick enough to hassle the mid-fleet and surprise the front-runners sometimes.
I think the mindset of the spinnaker being unmanageable comes from a select group of One-minded, one-class sailors who`se boat was not designed to carry a spinnaker and is just not up to it from a bouyancy placement viewpoint. Hobie only added the kite to keep their foot in with ISAF Youth events, which once again, is good marketing.
I wish the rest of us were capable of learning something.
Last comment : Miles & Darren look to be having a whole lot of fun while the H16 they just flew past is just doing time downwind.

Hang on I missed something here about the kite being too much for the kids.......

Why has the 29er got a kite then ?

Why has the 420 get a kite then ?

If you are saying the kids cannot cope with the sheet why loads did we have a couple of 14 and 15 year olds sailing Hobie 16's because they had to, what were others sailing Spitfires because they wanted to. And why is one of them now sailing a Tornado because he can?

And if the sheet loads are too much, why were kids sailing 16 foot cats (the old Condor) 22 years ago (Andy Webb) at 15, and the Dart 18 25 years ago at 12 (me helming) and the Dart 20(Stampede), 21 years ago at 16 (me again, helming). Do the kids a litte justice, they can cope with the sheet loads just fine.

I have had a 16 years old boy crew for me on the Tornado. As long as he could use his legs for sheeting main or spi, he would do fine for a day of racing, he was small for a 16 years old at the time. Handling the boat on land was a bit heavier, and we had to experiment a bit before we could right it in light winds.

I think the Mittelmeiers was around 15-16 when they started racing the Tornado. They was a bit light for heavy wind at the time, but very fast in lightish winds.
The sheet loads isn't the issue. It's an economical and political question. As long as ISAF doesn't take more initative and follow up on it's own selection of the SL16, it will be the Hobie16 with spi we will see.

How large is the SL16 class? I see that a new SL16 costs around EUR10.000,-

Got to agree with Steve, they should have chosen a design with the features of the Mosquito, where homebuilding and affordability are strong points. But plywood would probably not cut it, as I seem to remember that one of the criteria for the selected boat was that it should be able to be sailed in a game of "bumper boats".. (what's the materials in the SL16 hulls?)

The price thing is all madness anyway as the least time we had the 420's at our club I was talking to a couple of them (they wanted to know about sailing a cat single handed with a kite ) and I wanted to know how long 420's lasted as they did not last long when I was a lad.

"oh, they are lasting a little longer these days, we change the boat every 9 to 12 months depending on how many wild regatta's we have"

Bonkers !

my college sailing club has been using the same JY 15's now for 15 YEARS

and yes, there are only 2 left out of the original 6