Hobie Cat Forums

Hi all.

Yes I am sure you seen this question before, but I can't seem to find the answer, maybe there is more than one right answer.
Some background info:
So I have always liked the idea of sailing, sailed with a friend of mine decades ago on their Hobie 16, they even skiid behind the Hobie.

In the meantime I have always been the Ducati dude, motorcycles. However now with wife and two boys, around 11 years old, not to mention traffic and cops etc, I really want to get off-road. Living in Canada, near Toronto, flying would be great, but too pricey, and falling would be bad, worse than on a bike.

Back to the question. With the Great lakes right here, and so many places one can reach along water, Hobie style off-roading looks really appealing to me.

I am obviously a new sailor, have the wife and boys, will probably be solo sailing often. My one requirement with every vehicle is that I want to be able to go somewhere with it. It would be great if we could load a tent and some other luggage on the boat and camp around islands in Georgian bay, Massassaga provincial park etc. I need some comfort, weight carrying capacity. Kayaking is ok, but sailing would be better I think. I will do a learn2sail course.

So I am shopping for a used Hobie. Not a monohull for sure. With a budget of below $2000 for a Hobie16, or maybe below $4k is a bit more money, but then I can get a much newer Wave, or Getaway. I have seen that H18 could also be a candidate.

Give me some ideas on which to aviod, for sure. Recommendations too, are 1980s era H16 worht buying, or are they just a bunch of problems?

Sorry for the long post, looking forward to your replies.

Yup, Canada sure is a beautiful country, and with so much water....lakes and rivers and coast lines, and a great place to sail.

I suggest you learn to sail first, and as you do so, you'll learn that all sailboats are built with a degree of compromise. The compromise is between speed, comfort, safety and price. There are millions of articles and books on this particular subject. You may be asking for too much boat for too few dollars.

So a simple H16 will carry two adults, ideally not more than about 310 lbs all up mass, and zoom around as fast as you can fly her. Over 320 lbs, and she starts to wallow, and with more and more weight, will end up sailing like a sow.

For 'family stuff', go on line and look at the Hobie Getaway, will carry more, not as fast, still lots of fun, much cheaper etc. For hands on, go down to the James St spit or Humber River SC or visit Fogh Marine, Oxford St off the Gardiner Expressway, and look at one. Most resorts now offer the smaller version, the Hobie Wave, better suited to solo sailing or skipper plus 1 crew.

Sounds like your journey might include looking at a Hobie 18 or 21 (both out of production, but still great catamarans).

When you are ready, I'd be glad to skipper for you and the family on my buddy's Sunsail 384 in the BVI's.....the rate will be very reasonable.

_________________
1989 Hobie SX18 Sail # 1947
'Only two things are infinite, the universe, and human stupidity. But I'm not sure about the former.'

John thanks for the reply.

You see that is why I need help. The specs say the Wave and 16 can carry 800 lb, and Getaway 1000.

However you say at even half that it will already wallow.

I agree the Getaway sounds like the right one for me. I went to Fogh the other day, saw the islands, love that concept.

How would the sailing speed of a tandem island be compared to Getaway?

I actually wanted to edit my post, but seems that is not an option.

Essentially we look at power to weight ratio, Wave and Tandem island, small sails, 16 and Getaway both double the sail size. So the latter two should be way faster, right?

Seems to me your choices are:
* a family boat
* a performance style boat

Getaway/H18/H21 are the social boats,
H14/H16/H17/H20/Tiger/WildCat are the performance boats.
Wave is a bit of both.
Adventure Islands is a new concept, however, they will NOT do well in rough water, as the cross arms are not designed for a lot of stress.

Why don't you join a Club that has training and Cats, speak with others....
go to www.cat-alist.com and explore this with Karen-Ann and the Humber gang.
Then buy a used H16, have fun, and grow from there.
And of course, sail whatever you can find when down south...in the warmth.

_________________
1989 Hobie SX18 Sail # 1947
'Only two things are infinite, the universe, and human stupidity. But I'm not sure about the former.'

Saying a Hobie 16 can carry 800 lbs is a bit like saying a Honda Civic can carry 5 full grown adult men. I suppose it might be physically possibe, but it isn't something you'd ever want to try.

The only catamaran that Hobie ever made which would be capable of carrying 800+ lbs and still having any reasonable level of performance would be the Hobie 21. All of the smaller boats will be absolute pigs with anywhere near that amount of weight.

sm

If you search for "model year history" you'll find some stuff describing the changes over the years. I don't think there were any bad years; the boats just got better over time. Newer is better both from an aging perspective and because the boat will have newer features.

I have no idea what Hobie Cat is thinking when they say 800 pounds capacity. 450~500 pounds on my old boat is all I'd want, and that takes some management in waves. For performance sailing, 350 or less. New boats are lighter but not 300 pounds lighter!

$2000~3000 gets you a pretty nice boat. Probably '90s some time. '95 saw a lot of changes so try for that.

If you don't know exactly what you want to do yet, a decent cheap 16 is an OK way to go for singlehand, two adults or an adult and two kids. If you want to do the family thing, a Getaway sounds like a great option because there's so much more space and stability.

_________________
'78 H16 - 32692 ex-rental
'00 H16 - 104691
Old Holsclaw trailer