Wind speed window for monohull?

Looks me to like the sail kit manual was written before the furler for the Hobie kayak sail became available in early 2014. With sail furling, I think a Hobie kayak can be sailed - after a fashion - in winds in excess of 20 knots in smallish lakes where waves don't build up. Never tried it, but in 25+ knot winds I suspect even a mast with a fully furled sail would be a handful. Any divine wind (kamikaze) sailors out there?

A non island Hobie with a sail kit. No way you hit 10mph on a decent body sized water. You would have to be on very narrow water. The biggest killer of speed is waves. Plus you don't have a decent centerboard, other than the Revo 16. I can't even maintain 10mph on my TI solo, open Pacific waters, no way. 5 to 7mph on the TI is about right.
I would say if you could maintain 3 to 5 mph on a sail kit/outriggers, your doing real good.

_________________
Mark
Tandem Island- 2013
2 - Sports - 2014

All Hobie Mirage kayaks are designed from the ground up to take advantage of both the mirage drives and the kayak sail kit. Both my wife and I started using Hobie Mirage kayaks in 2007 shortly after moving to Florida. I spent most of my life in the midwest 75 miles from any decent water so kayaking wasn't on my priority list up there, but I did a lot of canoeing up there.
I'm canadian and am deathly afraid of alligators (we don't have gators up there (lol). In Florida all fresh water has gators so we pretty much only go in salt water in SW FL and the Keys (where we live).
At the time we had an Oasis (tandem), and a Revo 13 (single, actually we had a pair of Revos ).
We bought the Hobie sail kits with the boats and were out pretty much every weekend with them, we never launched any of our kayaks ever without the sail kit strapped to the side of the boat (strapped on the paddle bungy), not even once...
If there was enough wind to utilize the kayak sail (around 6mph), we whipped the sail out and used it, takes all of 30 or so seconds to whip it out toss it in the mast hole and unfurl it (yea you really need a furler, we had home made PVC furlers on all of ours (pre-dates the Hobie furler ).
Once the wind gets over 12 mph we would furl the sails some and sail under partial sail (the beauty of the furlers). When the wind got to 15mph we typically took the sails down and stowed them on the side of the boat, but that was just us, I'm pretty sure others are still using their partially furled sails up into the low 20's wind (really depends on the size of the waves and if you are in protected water or not (I don't like being eaten by sharks, just sayin).
My advise is don't try to sail the boat like you would a laser or sunfish, it's not the same and you will be dissapointed if you do (I'm an old sunfish sailer). It's not like your legs are doing anything anyway so you might as well use the peddles, In other words do't try playing hard core man vs sea sailer by pulling the mirage drive with these boats. The boat is not designed to not use the mirage drive, even if not peddling leaving the mirage drive in with the pedals pointed down acts like a dagger board and allows upwind sailing. Hobie kayaks peddle so easily as long as you don't try to peddle like a wildman ( or woman) you can after building up your legs after a couple outings easily peddle at a walking pace for up to ten hrs at a time without breaking a sweat (we do it all the time).
Don't think for a minute that you won't capsize once in a while, that's just part of kayak sailing without outriggers, even with Hobie Sidekicks, your still going to go over once in a while so it's best to leash everything and make sure you know how to right and re-enter your kayak, It's way harder than it sounds and you really need to practice re-entry. We literally spent days practicing re-entry in our pool before ever attempting to go out in open ocean, I'm sure our neighbors were quite entertained (lol).
Just so you know, it's typically powerboat wakes and big wind gusts that get you, all part of kayak sailing.
With kayak sails you can easily quadruple your range, but if going offshore watch out for offshore winds, there is a great risk of getting blown out to sea (know your boats real capabilities (not imagined).
Hope this helps
FE

Daft:
Actually if you want to be creative with your inflatable you can setup a furling sail with a spinning mast topper, of course you will need to redo your stay lines, and will likely need to use a PVC furler vs the Hobie furler (no hull to attach the Hobie furler fixins to on an inflatable).
Here s one of my old setups with a mast topper and furling mainsail, maybe this will give you ideas (don't do the spinnaker and jib, those would be overkill on your inflatable)

Hope this helps
FE

Yea I think Mark is pretty close, typically a stock TI will sail around .6 to .7 of windspeed, and a Hobie kayak sail setup on lets say a revo 13 will settle in at .4 to .5 of windspeed (if it's not too wavy). So in ten mph wind you will sail around 4 mph while (5 mph while peddling lightly). Of course performance varies, the bigger wider boats won't be as fast.
If you ever want to sail upwind, you will need to either pedal lightly, or point your mirage drive straight down to use as a daggerboard, otherwise it's darn difficult to sail upwind.
Of course if it's wavy all bets are off, most waves stop you in your tracks, because you are so light.

BTW: We had the larger sailing rudder on all our kayaks,I don't know if it will fit on an inflatable.
FE

This topic is essentially about wind speed/strength and handling, not boat speed. The actual passage from the Hobie mirage sail kit manual is: "Optimum wind strength is between 4 to 10 MPH. As the wind speeds exceed optimal range, the kayak will become more difficult to control".

I sail an Adventure (actually an Island but I prefer sailing it as a kayak) with the daggerboard and an Oasis set up as a schooner (additional mast base in the foredeck). Like Fusion I ALWAYS take my sail and I sail at every opportunity (these are now my main sailing boats, I need to get a regular sailing fix and they satisfy my cravings just fine).

I am not sure exactly the maximum wind strengths that I go out in but I am sure that the gusts I get hit by are way above 10-15knots. here in Auckland we get consistently good yachting breezes which I guess means beaufort 3-5 - and I estimate that the 'best' windspeed for me is about a beaufort 4, whatever that is in knots. In the summer there are often strong afternoon seabreezes even if the day has started out flat calm, and these can be quite a challenge especially they push up big wind-over-tide chop - though often the challenge is more about the waves disrupting your sailing by slewing the boat around and you have to have your wits about you when sailing on certain points of sail/waves or you risk a ducking!

The extra leverage of the daggerboard certainly adds to the Adventure's stability and pointing abilities and/but I use a carbon fibre mast which is much less bendy than the standard one - this maintains sail shape in stronger breezes much better but has much less give so the boat is noticeably more twitchy in gusty conditions. I much prefer the carbon mast because I can hang onto full sail in much stronger breezes because the sail doesn't completely distort as it would on the stock mast - so I frequently end up leaning right out for extended periods of sailing to get my body weight as far out onto the gunwales and avoid being blown flat.

In the past I used to stay the mast with forestay and running backstay/shrouds (3 rather than 4) and this also made a vast improvement in sail shape and performance - all in all I reckon that improving on the standard mast or staying it is one of the best mods you can make for pure sailing because of the effect this has on sail shape & performance. I stayed my mast to give myself the ability to add a jib - and the standard mast performed very well indeed supporting a jib with and a mainsail with its stays - though this setup was only for light winds! I imagine that, similarly, the inflatables benefit considerably from their stays(?) but of course they have more flexibility in the 'chainplates' and they lack a daggerboard.

My preference is to sail with the daggerboard inserted in its slot, the mirage drive pulled, and a plug in the drive slot (I'm a bit of a sailing purist and find that pedaling upsets the boat's balance under sail). Certainly removing the drive adds a bit to the boat's speed but it is hard to guesstimate exactly how much - probably a quarter of a knot - which doesn't sound like a lot but when normal sailing speed is only 2-5knots it does make quite a bit of difference.

As to how fast I sail? Well as you know much depends on windspeed and direction and in kayaks waves/wave direction, and I measure my sailing speed on a GPS in tidal waters which is only so accurate as it gives speed over ground, not through water and the measurements jump about a bit as the GPS does its positioning thing. For some reason, most of my sailing seems to be done upwind at the moment - I almost can't remember what off the wind sailing is like. Comfortable sailing (light winds) is probably 2-4 knots (below this I get frustrated by lack of progress and want to pedal instead) - at 2-4 knots I reckon I am sailing at the cruising speed of an average paddler so I am happy enough to achieve that with no effort and I can jog along and doze a bit with little risk of mishap. A consistent 4-5.5 knots happens in stronger winds and is usually accompanied by gusts that threaten a capsize. A consistent 5-6 knots is possible but typically needs ideal wind, direction and wave conditions or it gets too risky. Fastest I have ever measured I seem to remember was 7 point something knots (but maybe it was eight - honestly can't remember exactly) pedalling and sailing with the tide and catching waves at the same time.