Return to Hobie.com
Hobie Forums
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 9:33 am

All times are UTC - 8 hours [ DST ]




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 36 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3  Next
Author Message
PostPosted: Mon Jul 22, 2013 7:00 am 
Offline
Site Rank - Old Salt

Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2010 10:43 am
Posts: 483
Location: Long Island NY
When I was down in the Caribbean on vacation with my wife, her brothe and his family of 4 .. the resort we were at had several Wave's and one Getaway. It was a slow time for the resort so I had pretty much constant use of anything I wanted. I've sailed Wave's many times on vacation and felt right at home again on them ... the Getaway sat lonely and unloved for the first 4 days. Finally, I asked the waterfront guy if I could take it out and he said "Sure .. you know what you're doing out there - I've been watching"

Well, it took him, me, and 2 other resort workers he recruited to drag the Getaway 50-75' across the sand into the water (no cart) and that was just no fun at all !!

I adjusted to its size easily but it IS much more boat. Once familiar with it, I beached and the whole crew came onboard for a 2 hour sail. I was amazed at how easily it shrugged off the added weight and how much room there was for everone. It had the wing seats and riding on them was alot of fun.

... I've been thinking of owning one ever since, but, I could not imagine ever trying to single-hand it into or out of the water. You state you've owned one before, so I guess you've got that well worked out and it isn't an issue

The true beauty of the AI/TI is that they are the Swiss Army Knife of boats and with a trailer can easily be single-handed into/out of the water. They can morph from kayak to pedal boat to sailing/fishing machine, and of course the true beauty is in most instances even when the wind dies you've got a way to get home (or at least to shore).

As much as I love the AI/TI (and I plan on owning one for quite some time), if I was in your shoes and put-in/take-out isn't an issue, I think I might be swayed to the Getaway because of the additional room and dryness.

Since you are familiar with the Getaway, why don't you see if you can demo a TI somewhere with the Family ?

... just another opinion

_________________
Alan W.

Papaya AI2 to replace my well worn V1
TheTwins - His/Hers 2007 Papaya Hobie Adventure Island's (v1.00.01)
.. and a Hobie Outback SUV


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Jul 22, 2013 1:29 pm 
Offline
Site Rank - Deck Hand

Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2013 9:41 am
Posts: 12
I have almost the same situation. Two kids, Wife and Dog. We often all go on the TI. There is plenty of room. We even have no trouble fishing from it. I think you will have trouble testing one, because I really didn't find it suited for our family, until I made 8' hakas to go over the tramps. I think you almost have to have both with little kids. My kids move side to side for tacks, they like being part of the crew. They take lots of naps on the Hakas, and when they are lively they stand up and "surf" of the Hakas. Tons of fun. I will say, people say it's a wet ride. I think that is an understatement. We often get just as wet as if we were swimming, and we have spray skirts. The kids have wet suits for cold water. Good luck.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Jul 22, 2013 3:27 pm 
Offline
Site Rank - Captain

Joined: Sun Jul 18, 2010 2:39 pm
Posts: 87
jcshreffler wrote:
I have almost the same situation. Two kids, Wife and Dog. We often all go on the TI. There is plenty of room. We even have no trouble fishing from it. I think you will have trouble testing one, because I really didn't find it suited for our family, until I made 8' hakas to go over the tramps. I think you almost have to have both with little kids. My kids move side to side for tacks, they like being part of the crew. They take lots of naps on the Hakas, and when they are lively they stand up and "surf" of the Hakas. Tons of fun. I will say, people say it's a wet ride. I think that is an understatement. We often get just as wet as if we were swimming, and we have spray skirts. The kids have wet suits for cold water. Good luck.



When you say hakas, do you mean the wood that goes over the tramps? What is the advantage of that over just the trampolines? Thanks to everyone for the great input, I have a lot to think about. I guess another pluss for the TI is its about three grand less than a getaway.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Jul 22, 2013 5:50 pm 
Offline
Site Rank - Captain

Joined: Tue Apr 30, 2013 12:16 pm
Posts: 98
Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Yes check out the big haka thread from nohuhu http://www.hobiecat.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=37645 the tramps are great for kids to lounge around on and to take naps but other than that I'm not sure what purpose they serve. The hakas you can stand on, awesome spot to sail from, great for gear, increased visibility. Love and I mean Love the hakas

_________________
"Not everyone who wanders is lost." - Tolkien


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Jul 22, 2013 5:57 pm 
Offline
Site Rank - Captain

Joined: Sun Jul 18, 2010 2:39 pm
Posts: 87
I was reading that a few minutes ago; that's a long thread!! Is he using the hakas with the kids or only the tramps for kids? The reason I ask is because he said he didn't find it suited for his family until he made the hakas.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Jul 22, 2013 6:04 pm 
Offline
Site Rank - Captain

Joined: Tue Apr 30, 2013 12:16 pm
Posts: 98
Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Sounds like he's using both at the same time. I typically use one or the other depending on what I'm doing. After reading his comments I think I'm going to make another set of hakas to use with the tramps and try it out

_________________
"Not everyone who wanders is lost." - Tolkien


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Jul 22, 2013 9:47 pm 
Offline
Site Rank - Admiral

Joined: Fri May 11, 2012 3:07 pm
Posts: 224
No one on the HI forum is going to recommend a Getaway lol.

The getaway will hold your family and some friends and your not going to grow out of it. Faster, easy to rig, and very, very hard to flip. I think there is a bit of bias, posting the question in the HI forums :). The biggest advantage you will have with the getaway aside from speed is comfort. I can't imagine cramming my family on to a TI, sure they would fit, but they wouldn't be able to relax, of course I have 4 kids. Trouble with little kids is they grow up fast. Sailing a getaway with my boys is awesome, I can sit next to them and quickly grab the reigns if I need or go lay down on the front tramp when the wind dies down a bit, grab a drink from the cooler while my kids do flips off of the wings.

Plus we have a kayak too. Kayaks are cheap so having both is very practical.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2013 4:44 am 
Offline
Site Rank - Captain

Joined: Sun Jul 18, 2010 2:39 pm
Posts: 87
kevinbatchelor wrote:
No one on the HI forum is going to recommend a Getaway lol.

The getaway will hold your family and some friends and your not going to grow out of it. Faster, easy to rig, and very, very hard to flip. I think there is a bit of bias, posting the question in the HI forums :). The biggest advantage you will have with the getaway aside from speed is comfort. I can't imagine cramming my family on to a TI, sure they would fit, but they wouldn't be able to relax, of course I have 4 kids. Trouble with little kids is they grow up fast. Sailing a getaway with my boys is awesome, I can sit next to them and quickly grab the reigns if I need or go lay down on the front tramp when the wind dies down a bit, grab a drink from the cooler while my kids do flips off of the wings.

Plus we have a kayak too. Kayaks are cheap so having both is very practical.



I see your point about being biased but if I were to post in the getaway forums, there would be a bias there too. I am just wanting to hear others experiences. :D I guess I am trying to persuade myself to get the TI since I can take it 3 minutes from my house and use it(without sail) if I want to but if I want to go sailing with the getaway or the TI I must travel about an hour away in order to do so. On the other hand, I can rent a getaway from the place I sail out of for $200 for 8 hours but I cant rent a TI. I absolutely loved my getaway, only sold it because I bought a 23.5' hunter monohull. BIG MISTAKE on selling :( .


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2013 5:48 am 
Offline
Site Rank - Old Salt

Joined: Tue Jun 19, 2007 6:14 pm
Posts: 3323
Location: South Florida
I've never had a Getaway. I did have an H-16 in the 70's & 80's. KevinB gives the pluses of a Getaway compared to an Island. The Getaway is faster and will hold your family & some friends. The biggest advantage of the Getaway over an Island: "speed and comfort." Nobody is going to argue about the speed advantage. Every Island owner might challenge him on the "comfort" claim. I assume he means the Getaway is more comfortable when the wind dies and you can stretch out and take a nap. Not a lot of Island owners do that, although they could.

Speed is pretty much the only advantage the Getaway may have over the Island. It weighs 390#--only Atlas would shrug at that. The Islands weigh 1/2 to 1/4 of that and can be handled by a single person. Islands are regularly used in off-shore & inshore fishing. Islands make a great vehicle for camping--see my lengthy thread: http://www.hobiecat.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=7276 Islands will handle a lot of abuse from weather to dragging up the beach. The Tandem can handle a family of 4 w/o problem. Islands in the kayak-mode are great for inshore fishing. How often do you see 4-10 Getaways sailing/camping together? That is pretty common event for Islands whether out for a day sailing or doing a camping trip. Speaking of camping, again, how many Getaways do 4-7 day camping trips? That is common for Islands.

Storage? I store 2 AIs in my garage along with 3 kayaks, 3 bikes, and a bunch of yard stuff. How many Getaways can you store in a garage? I have also transported 3 AIs on my trailer more than once.

The advantage of the Islands over the Getaway? Versatility.

If you are a weekend sailor, and love speed, a Getaway might be a good boat. If you like to sail, fish, camp, handle your boat solo, store your boat out of the elements--an Island is the better boat, hands down.

Keith

_________________
2015 AI 2, 2014 Tandem

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex ... It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." A. Einstein

"Less is more" Anon


Last edited by Chekika on Tue Jul 23, 2013 11:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2013 7:18 am 
Offline
Site Rank - Old Salt

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:18 am
Posts: 3058
Location: Sarasota,Key West FL
av8erdunn :
In 2010 I went into the local Hobie dealer cash in hand ready to purchase either a new H16 or a Getaway. The dealer had just got in the new TI and said he thought as kayakers we would get much more use from the TI over the Getaway, and we also have a serious storage problem living in a restricted subdivision (no trailers allowed), and down here in Florida any storage costs a fortune.
We use our Tandem Island as a family boat, basically everything we used to do on the Sea Ray powerboat we now do on the TI. We often have kids (grand kids and friends kids), and they all seem to enjoy their time on the boat. We don't have HAKA's but I do have strengthened spray skirts on both the front and back of the boat, the boat is very dry now (very similar to a Windrider 17, which is also nice). The rear ones someone could hike out on if they wanted to, and I have had kids sitting on them. The front spray skirts are not quite that strong but they are strong enough to stow gear on, things like dive bags, dry bags, etc. I am thinking about making new super strong front spray skirts. The spray skirts also help re-enforce the AMA's to prevent them from folding. Yea we overload the boat weightwise once in a while, but it doesn't seem to effect it's pedaling and sailing performance as much as you would think, but then again I have a lot of extra sail on my boat, so performance may vary to a stock TI. We always carry 6 PFD's just in case.
We also have an inflatable 4 person boat that we use as a dingy, and tow it behind the TI which gives us an extra 650 lbs and 4 person capacity, it tows surprisingly well.
Another thing we do is use the TI as a party barge, often pulling 2-4 other kayaks when we have too many people. Especially if all the kayaks have mirage drives, you can really move along even when there is no wind, works well as the home base/mothership, where we can safely take a group of kayakers 5-6 miles out to the Mule Keys in more open water, where normally you would not take a Revo out that far. I'm fully equipped with Radios, flares, backup gas motor, etc ( we call the dingy our life raft (LOL). The TI is actually quite seaworthy, and actually handles rough seas and open water fairly well.
Kids like when I tie a ski rope to the center rear of the boat and drag the small kids around on boogie boards, it has to be tied to the center though otherwise you can't steer (the rudder on TI's is a little small). Keep in mind there isn't much wind in Florida (if any) 10 months out of the year, so we pedal most of the time. That's another thing you can peddle 20 miles with very little effort, and get up and do it again the next day (very easy to pedal, and it takes very little energy), with two pedalers you can easily maintain 5-6 mph in no wind all day long, when your legs get tired, you just paddle for a while, and if the wind comes up (once in a blue moon), you get to rest your legs and arms and sail for a while.
We also have a rope ladder that we use for re-entry to the boat. Since we are scuba divers and snorkelers, down here in Key West we just stop and drop anchor anyplace and just go snorkeling.
Another big thing about the TI 'we are avid kayakers', and the TI turns out to be one of Hobies best and fastest kayaks, we actually ended up selling all of our other Hobie kayaks and just use and travel with the TI anymore, either on the roof of our SUV (when our camper is in tow), or on the trailer (which is faster and easier to launch). We have owned 8 Hobies total.
It costs us nothing to store (we just keep it in the garage).
Depending on what we want to do that day, we just take along what gear we will need for that trip (if any). I don't think there is a more versatile boat out there.
These are all of course just my opinions, and experience, we are on our third TI now, and are very happy with what we have with about 3000 sailing miles under our belts, and no regrets, it's the perfect boat for our Florida lifestyle, and we use the heck out of ours every weekend all year round.
I could go on and on, (someone stop me please LOL)
Bob


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2013 7:45 am 
Offline
Site Rank - Captain

Joined: Sun Jul 18, 2010 2:39 pm
Posts: 87
Wow!!!! Great write up; Can I ask why you are on your third TI? I am still leaning toward the TI since it would be used more.Thanks for everyones input, this has helped me tremendously.

Bob, I would LOVE to see a picture of your setup if you have one handy. How did you mount a motor to it?


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2013 8:20 am 
Offline
Site Rank - Old Salt

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:18 am
Posts: 3058
Location: Sarasota,Key West FL
av8erdunn:
Here is a pic of my TI moored off shore for a week on a recent trip to Islamadora, we had a blast going out 2-3 times a day ever day we were there, just left it moored off shore for the week.
Image

You can read all about my TI on the Hobie forum topic (the ultimate Tandem Island ) viewtopic.php?f=69&t=33720

I go into great detail how I made everything, and what works and what doesn't work so well. Tinkering with my boats is all part of my hobby. Everything I have done, I can either put in on the boat if I think I'll need it, or just leave it at home or on shore (on the car) depending on what we want to do that day. We travel a lot all around the country, and take the boat wherever we go. Realistically 200k plus miles in the last few years with Hobies on the roof or in tow, stopping at any body of water we could fit in, including Colorado rapids (without the sails and AMA's of course (mild class 2 rapids)).

The motor is under the Mote Marine cloth bag (keeps it dry), I use a Mote marine bag to silence any green gas motor haters, ( Mote marine is a fish and dolphin sanctuary down here in Florida). To be honest I always carry 50 miles of fuel on board (about a gallon), but in the 3 yrs I've had it I haven't burned 6 gallons thru the motor. It's really only used in emergencies when I'm in really deep trouble (ie.. no wind and I'm still 30 miles from launch, bad storm and I'm fighting 30 mph winds and 4 ft seas, equipment failure, but a lot would have to fail with all the backups of everything (sails, pedal drives, paddles, etc), in order to need the motor.
Bob


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2013 8:34 am 
Offline
Site Rank - Captain

Joined: Sun Jul 18, 2010 2:39 pm
Posts: 87
Wow, thats quite the setup.

why have you owned so many TI's? Do they wear out?


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2013 8:57 am 
Offline
Site Rank - Old Salt

Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:18 am
Posts: 3058
Location: Sarasota,Key West FL
av8erdunn:
Just like our SUV's (we are on our 3rd Yukon Denali now) we just use the heck out of the stuff, like when we go to the Redneck yacht club events, we often get stuck up to the axles, and all pile into the car all covered with mud. All the gear we haul around and the stuff we do wears everything out quickly, so every 100k miles or so we trade them in to get a new vehicle ( and warranty). Same goes with the TI's, there is typically nothing wrong with the boats, but they are scratched up from river rocks and oyster beds so once the warranty expires I typically sell them, and buy a new one ( I like to keep things under warranty).
The only failure I ever had was when I had a hull rip when I was hauling the boat out of the water, about 8 feet onto a sand beach. The dealer was standing right there and saw what happened. Hobie replaced the whole hull under warranty (basically gave me a new boat). Number two the warranty ran out and I sold it, then bought a brand new one in summer 2012. All my extra stuff just transfers from one boat to the next since there are no modifications of any kind to the boat itself with any of my mods.
We use the TI just as we use our SUV's, and think of it as an SUV.
Bob


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 12:01 am 
Offline
Site Rank - Admiral

Joined: Thu Oct 04, 2012 5:41 pm
Posts: 184
Location: Aussie living in San Diego, CA
av8erdunn I'm biased towards the TI and have never owned or sailed a Getaway - so I have nothing bad to say about the Getaway or a comparison of the two. I have a TI and before that an AI and I also have a Hobie revolution kayak. It really gets down to what you want to do on the water. Many island owners use their boat to also go fishing or snorkeling or scuba diving or cave exploring or river adventures - I didn't hear you mention any of those other activities so having the flexibility to do them may be of little interest to you and your family - and that's what counts the most.

But lets suppose you decide on a TI and 6 months down the road you realize that was a big mistake and you really want a getaway - the good news is the Hobie TI's are really hot property and hold their value extremely well - its not like buying a car - - you will get most of your money back if its in as new condition - so the downside of having to change your mind later is really not too bad. I'm not sure if Getaway's hold their value as well as Hobie TIs but if they do then it really doesn't matter which one you choose because changing over in a few months shouldn't be too much impact on your finances.

Hope that helps

_________________
Life is the Journey - not the Destination
Image


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 36 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3  Next

All times are UTC - 8 hours [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Jump to:  
© Hobie Cat Company. All rights reserved.
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group