Odd stuff on a Hobie?!

I was looking through the posts, and someone made a remark to a fellow rookie about being "busy learning all of the odd stuff on a Hobie" (as opposed to a monohull). Okay sailors, what do I have to look forward to?

After years of sloops (and a few misguided adventures on a windsurfer) I think I want to try a cat, but I want to know what I'm getting myself into - preferably before I buy one! What surprises am I in for?

I have a Hobie 16 and a Marshall Sanderling catboat. I've owned the Hobie for 20 years and the catboat for 33. When you switch to the Hobie be prepared for exciting sailing. You sit on a Hobie not in it. It accelerates very quickly compared to a sloop. Your reflexes have to be faster. The higher speed affects the apparent wind so you may not point up as high as you are used to doing in a sloop. The basic principles of sailing don't change. When there is a moderate or light breeze I may sail the catboat and relax, heave to occasionally and have lunch. When the wind is up I sail the Hobie for fun and speed. According to my GPS, I have hit 7.5 mph on my catboat and almost 18 mph on the Hobie. I went faster on the Hobie but couldn't take time to look at the GPS. I don't know if you are into racing but I am not. I saw your post about the comptip mast. Hobie offered to retrofit it to my boat but I decided not to. I think it may be required to be class legal. Since I don't race, I don't care. I think the comptip mast is heavier, making raising and lowering it more difficult.

A friend of mine said you can learn all you need to know about sailing in 20 minutes and the rest of your life you spend trying to go faster. You won't have any trouble learning the Hobie.

Howard

Well for whatever it's worth, my GPS has a "max speed hold" feature so I don't have to *stare* at it. I've hit 18.2 knots (over 20mph) on a broad reach and my H16 is over 30 years old. A newer boat with someone more experienced would probably be somewhat faster than that.

Jim,

I have a Meridian Gold and I don't think it has a max. speed feature. What do you use? I am configured in MPH and have no doubt that you reached better than 20 mph. My grandson and I were out that day. Had he been a little more experienced I would have let him watch the GPS. He was busy enough. I think the record speed for a Hobie 16 is about 26 mph. His father, my son-in-law, and I were out one day in 25 to 35 mph winds. We were both on the wire and screaming across the lake. That day I'm sure we were over 20 mph (before GPS). I saw a power boat come along and stop to take video shots of us.

I have convinced more than one person to buy a Hobie after taking them for a ride. I hope the original poster gets the impression of how much fun she can have sailing a Hobie.

I have a Garmin ForeTrex 101. http://www.garmin.com/products/foretrex101/

Really enjoy it!

Jim,

That is a nice looking unit. I like the wrist style. I am happy with the Meridian Gold but it is quite a bit bigger and bulkier.

To get back to the original post I keep trying to think of differences or "odd stuff" on a Hobie that is referred to but can't think of anything significant. SEISALisa, if you can sail a sloop you can sail a Hobie.

Howard

Thanks for the reassurance, Jim. I can tell you though, I have never even come close to pitchpoling! Seeing the video of it is pretty amazing - do people ever get seriously (more than bumps, bruises or the odd broken bone) hurt when this happens?

I have pitchpole a only couple of times in all the years that I have been sailing. Once my son-in-law and I swung out around the mast when I got distracted on the helm and buried a bow with us both out on the wire, the boat went over and we got wet. No problems, no injuries. The Hobie 16, which I think is an ideal boat, has a tendency to bury the lee bow. You just have to watch the weight balance-move aft and keep an eye on the lee bow. You sail the boat according to your confidence level. You luff when you feel uncomfortable with the situation. There is an accessory I have seen of deflectors to put on the bow of the hulls to lift the bow. I don't know if they are effective but was told that they are. Some of the pitchpole pictures you see are of boats other than the 16. Where do you plan to sail? I know there are a lot of lakes around Austin. I sail mainly on a couple of lakes here in NC and occasionally at the beach going out through the surf.

Howard

I'm a Lake Travis girl. Think 35 miles of a fairly narrow river dammed on each end. You get a nice little current, no waves, a good wind off the hills (not that I just jinxed it or anything) but entirely too many powerboats on weekends. My saltwater days ended when I quit sailing in the northeast.

The H14 is WAY more likely to pitchpole. At least that's been my experience. Done it on my H16 a few times, but only when really moving on a broad reach. It's not so bad, just surprising. If you're talking about the video posted on the Hobiecat.com forum with a Tiger in France, I think his bows hit the bottom which made it much more violent. The headcam video of the guy in Sweeden is more like reality, goes over quick, but not violently quick. Crazy video. 8)~

I never sailed a 14 but I can see where the smaller hulls would have less bouyancy and possibly bury the bow easier.

Lisa (?) How big is Travis Lake? Kerr Lake is 50,000 acres and is the largest lake in VA. Where did you sail in the northeast? I am from NJ and we sailed a Marshall Sanderling Cape Cod catboat on the Barnegat Bay. I now have it on Kerr Lake.

If you have the opportunity, find where the Hobie sailors are and try to crew. You will learn a lot in a hurry and might even find one for sale.

Howard

Okay, I had to do a little research for this answer:
Lake Travis is 63.75 miles long (!), 4.5 miles wide at its widest point. It covers 18,929 acres and has a capacity of 382,092,882,600 gallons. I can only imagine how big Kerr Lake is!

I sailed from Annapolis and Marblehead (Mass.)- 38' Beneteau when not in small boats (think 420s, FJs, Scots, Lasers).

It was the Tiger video I saw, and boy did it scare the stuffing out of me! I know that shifting crew weight aft should help bring the bow up, but what about us lighter (120#) sailors? Do I need to make sure I have a heavyweight on the boat, or just bear off a little if I see bouyancy issues?

You may have a decimal point off on the length (?) on the size of your lake. I calculate 633 acres to a sq. mile and if the length were 7 miles, the width 4, that would be 19,000 acres. Kerr Lake is the dammed up Roanoke River and has a lot of branches and coves so it extends all over the place. Jordan Lake near Raleigh is 14,000 acres and a good lake for the Hobie.

At 120 lbs, I don't know if you want to singlehand a Hobie 16. Someone else will have to comment on that. I am about 185 and solo it all the time. It takes about 210 lbs to right it if you go over. I would think you would have more of problem going over than burying a bow and would have to luff the main to prevent it.

Howard

Lisa, again the issue with that Tiger video is that they were sailing in a shallow, narrow channel. A puff came and they had nowhere to go. That's just something that comes with high-speed sailing in a trench in France.

Regarding single-handing the H16... I do it all the time also, but I weigh about 170lbs. I need a righting bag or a buddy to get it back up, and with a righting bag it still takes a bit of work. I don't know how well you'd do on an H16 solo just because of that. On the other hand, you could try and find an H14 Turbo, it's the 14 with a jib. Same idea but the boat weighs quite a bit less so you'll have an easier time righting it, (I can do it alone no problem) although someone that's 120lbs. might need a bag, I dunno.
Once you get used to the H14T then you could upgrade to an H17, which is another boat designed for single-handing, but it's bigger, faster, and less likely to pitchpole.

4.5 miles at the widest point. At some points it is barely 150 yards across. If the calculations are wrong, talk to the people at www.laketravis.com. I took their word on the arithmetic.

Thanks for the advice, Jim. I don't anticipate singlehanding my boat (very often) as I have a standing sailing partner, but I may look into the H14.

Thanks also for calming me down. I promise not to sail in any trenches in France. Ever.

Okay. I guess the caviat is: IF you plan to do much sailing with a buddy, DON'T get an H14 because it's a dog with two people. I hear the H17 isn't good with two either. My fiancée and I pitchpoled her H14 going only (I think) 12 knots or so because me+her=fat for a H14. It'd be worse with a jib (H14T) for obvious reasons. The dang leeward bow really digs down with two people on it in a good wind.

I'd go back to looking at the H16 for multi-person sailing, and then maybe look into the Power Righting system. I haven't played with this at all but it looks like it'd give a smaller person more leverage than just a standard righting line and help make it easier / safer for you to single-hand a 16.

DON'T GIVE UP! It's fun! Wheee!

In other news, I have a video my fiancée took of me righting my H16 solo for the first time last year. It is here:
http://www.JaimeZX.com/OT/MOV01016.MPG (5.7MB)
Because of the poor resolution, I'll do a quick rundown on what you'll be seeing if you watch it:
(You'll hear Ming narrating, but she doesn't know exactly what I'm doing so don't listen to her. HEHEH)
You can see the red dot (me) bending down in the front of the boat, filling the righting bucket (bag).
Then I stand up, throw the bag over my shoulder, and lean back.
Then I wait, and the boat comes up slowly.
Then Ming shouts with joy.
THEN I jump back on the boat and start fidgeting with the sheets and the boat starts moving again.

Lisa,

You say you have a standing partner???

Tell him to SIT DOWN !

If by odd stuff you're talking hardware, on big one is the halyard lock, not commonly seen on mono's, the halyard locks into a fork or hook on the mast (depending on brand) to remove some of the compession force on the mast, and usually the jib halyard has a block that goes up the mast when the sailis down, when hoisted it gets hooked up with one on the mast to give a 3 to 1 purchase for getting good luff tension. Then there is the locking pin for the mast base, it keeps the base on the ball during stepping the mast, but needs to be removed for sailing or the mast won't rotate.

With crew... do not get a Hobie 14 (or Turbo)
A 16 is fine solo or with crew. Righting the thing solo is not a problem... get a bag or better a soloright and learn the technique.
You could also think Nacra 5.2 or Prindle 16. Since you are a Lake Travis girl I would recommend to hang out at the Highland Lake Marina to catch a ride. There is a good selection of beach cats and I would be surprised if not someone would take you for a spin. Once you made a decission for a cat learn about the typical defects (for used hobies it is delamination - in Austin you will find plenty for dead hobies)
Odd stuff... the old Hobies (14/16) are pretty simple - very few controles. One of the odd things for me was the 2 meter long tiller extension that needed to be swiveled around the rear each tack. Nothing that someone who sails for 10 years could not learn.

Patrick

I totally agree with Yoh. Do not get a Hobie14 if you are considering anything other than solo sailing. I own a Nacra 5.2 and I solo it all the time. I weigh 150 pounds. I can not right it by myself but there are always other sailors around to help out in case of a capsize. Worst case scenario, I could ask one of the darn jetskiers who are all over the place. I plan on installing a righting pole to give myself a little independence so I can explore the area a little more. I have yet to capsize the Nacra, it is very stable. I have flipped a Hobie 16 many times and they are no problem to get back upright as long as you have a second person. I would recommend a Nacra 5.5 or an 18 Square. If you are brand loyal, I would say go with the Hobie 18. They have room for a couple of friends to tag along.

Rob V.
Nacra 5.2
Panama City

The TheMightyHobie18 is definately a nice boat, but (IMHO) significantly more difficult to right than a H16. I can't imagine doing it solo.

The guy (hobie garry?) - the maker of the original rightning pole used to post on his website that he could right his Hobie 18 solo with the help of his pole. My pole is just a fancy knock off the one he made. Patrick