We were long time kayakers before buying our tandem island. Our story is very similar to serbi's. once we got the TI the oasis and revolutions just sat for a year or two unused until we sold them. We also sold our sea ray powerboat, and sunfish, and only have just the TI now. We are out every weekend all year round on the TI. We think of our TI as our SUV, and use it for everything. We are campers and have traveled all over the country with kayaks on our roof for a very long time now. In reality the TI is easier to load onto my roof than our oasis was, I think because it is longer, it is easier to load, I cannot tell the weight difference between the boats, as a kayak the TI is maybe 10 lbs heavier it seems, which is not noticeable to me. However as a kayak the TI is by a large margin Hobies best and fastest kayak, way faster and better than our old oasis was in my opinion. When solo in the TI it is much better to be in the front seat, it was designed this way and all your sailing controls (ie.. Centerboard, harken cleats, furler, etc) are only usuable from the front seat. And the boat is balanced perfectly ( no need for any ballast). Make sure you get the trampoline option, with the tramps you can hike out when sailing. In the back seat you are completely trapped back there, and you always have the sail control lines trying to take your head off. Plus as Tom mentioned when it's windy and your in the back, the bow is way out of the water, and it's hard to steer. Another big thing for us is since this is our family boat, you can easily carry 4 adults on the TI, with the tramp option (we do it all the time). The two seat oasis kayak has a weight capacity of 550 lbs , the 2 seat TI kayak has a weight capacity of 600 lbs, plus it is much bigger ( and faster) with much more storage when adventuring and camping in kayak mode. Now the only reason hobie doesn't increase the weight capacity with tha AMA's and tramps is because they do not want to step on their sailing line of boats ( that's really obvious). It takes at least 300 lbs of weight to sink each AMA, and each tramp is rated at 200 lbs. Because both the AMA's and the tramps are removable, their weight plaque cannot be changed which reads 600 lbs an 2 passengers ( the kayak itself weight spec). Think about it the TI is the largest boat that Hobie makes, bigger than even the getaway yet has the lowest weight and passenger capacity. If you look at all the videos of families on TI's you will see what I'm talking about. Everyone has different needs, as kayakers we have owned 7 Hobies now, and loved every one of them, Hobie by far makes the best boats out there, I consider the TI to be the ultimate boat for our many needs as a family boat and of course all of this is just my opinion, and our specific needs. As far as economics go our sea ray was $60k plus $5k per yr maint and storage( not including fuel), our revo's were $1800 ea (x2), the oasis was around $2400, and I think the sunfish was around $5k. You can add all that up, or just get a TI for $5500 and replace all that other stuff with a boat that does all the same stuff we did with all the other boats combined (true story). It was a bargain for us, comparing to what we spent already. Hope this helps Bob
Last edited by fusioneng on Thu Sep 05, 2013 7:14 am, edited 3 times in total.
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