Hobie Cat Forums

I am procrastinating while doing my homework whilst dreaming of embarking on Baja surf adventures with light weight sail boats packed with light weight camping gear for multiday tours of hard to get to surf breaks.

Would I be asking for a disaster if I rigged a getaway with a reefable main sail loaded it up with water, surfboards, food, tents, etc., and charged into an ocean which frequently has 35 knot on/offshore winds?

I have lots of experience on the San Francisco bay in small keel boats during high winds.

Reefing the main might be a problem, you would need a special main halyard with two tangs on it (like the old 16's) and you would have to get a sail maker to put in a reef point. I did see a fellow who put a zipper in the main?? You could always just furl the jib if the wind comes up. As far as the gear is concerned, as long as you don't overload the boat shouldn't be a problem, there is some pictures somewhere that shows a tent on a 16 I think. Just take the proper precautions, take a UHF radio and the usual safety gear, don't get too far from shore, know your limits, study the shore maps so you know where you can make landfall if you need. Just my 2 cents worth.

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06 getaway -- always remember, man with both feet in mouth have no leg to stand on.

I would have a smaller sail made to suit the max conditions you expect rather than reefing. You will sacrafice some speed but feel better equiped.

That would probably work as all you would need is an extension for the main halyard. My experiance with the older 16's is even when I reefed in the main it was still over powered in a big blow.

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06 getaway -- always remember, man with both feet in mouth have no leg to stand on.

As for reefing, I've seen Getaways with Hobie Wave sails put onto them down in the BVI's when the wind is really cranking there. The boat performs very well that way. The only problem with it that I could see was that the head of the sail was so far away from the head of the mast that it had a tendency to pull out of the sail track a bit.

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JT Cole
Clermont, FL
'03 Getaway

I've got a Hobie Wave and have also been wondering about reefing the boomless main (for the same reason, 30-35 knot winds!). I don't think it would be that hard -- just get a sailmaker to sew in reef points (maybe 2 sets of reef points for the Getaway). Given the absence of a boom, you could put double battens in the pockets where your reef points are, then roll the sail up to the reef point, tie it together with sail ties and hook your main halyard onto the sail tie at the (new) clew. I don't think a second tang would be essential -- I've sailed a Hobie 16 many times with the halyard just secured at the mast, with no tang. One downside of having no boom is that when you reef, the clew moves forward so the mainsheet wouldn't be pulling vertically, and you would have a bit of rolled-up mainsail protruding out behind the (new) clew.

If you're thinking of travelling light, I imagine that you don't want to carry a sail wardrobe for different wind conditions -- reefing definitely sounds preferable, if you can work out a good system.

That's my 2 cents' worth.