old hobie cat 12' not monohull, help , what is this?

has anyone ever heard of the hobie 12', found one in truckee ca. for 300$. boat is old maybe 1970's? limited info online, only reference to french youth trainer. thanks Rob.

Right now there is an ad on EBay for a Hobie 3.5, listed as 11 feet. Any one of you Hobie guys know about this boat? To my eye it's a dead ringer for an H16. That 3.5 badge on the sail looks suspicious.

Hobie 3.5 on EBay

Is it the Hobie 12 MonoCat:


Or the Hobie 3.5 (a baby 14 - actually 11 ft. long):


(photo is from the same eBay listing David has above)
The 3.5 was produced for a very short period of time. It truly is a kids' boat. It doesn't do well with much more than 100 lbs. on it

The Hobie 12 Mono Cat (Grand Daddy of the Bravo) was a thermo formed ABS and had issues with water retention in the foam filled hull. Neat boat though. Built in the Irvine Hobie facility back in the mid 70's.

http://www.hobiecat.com/media/pdf/monocat.pdf

Great info Matt... thanks.
I love at the end of the pdf it states the sails, hulls, and tramp colors are subject to change... yet.. there is no tramp

We had one, great little boat. Also had two Hobie 10's.

Water retention was a problem. We had one donated to Sail Sand Point in Seattle, a few years back. Took three people to lift it.

Caleb

I'd say that 3.5 looks legitimate. There's only 5 battens in the main, so there's no way it's a 16.

Matt M, did they sell many of the 3.5s in the US? They seem pretty cool for a kid boat?

Mike

thanks for all of the info, sadly the boat is already gone.