Doctorbuzz:
Most medicines and beer are destroyed or degraded by UV light. (UV means ultra violet), UV is actually in the invisible spectrum, we can't see UV because the lenses in our eyes block it. Actually people with brown eyes have way better natural protection against UV and typically don't need to wear sun glasses (I've never worn them), and people with blue eyes have almost no natural uv protection so everyone highly recommends people with blue eyes always wear sun glasses outdoors (especially in Florida).
If your into photo developing (one of my hobbies) you can actually block certain colors of light with another color, for example to block blue light you would apply a yellowish brown filter to your lense. Since blue is fairly close to the wave length of ultra violet, by blocking the blue some of the UV is blocked (but of course not all). That's why all medicine bottles are yellowish brown, and nearly all beer bottles are brown, those colors block uv the best naturally without the need for expensive additives, if you don't believe me just look at any medicine bottle or pretty much any beer bottle in the world.
All of Hobies boats have UV inhibitors added to the plastic to protect the plastic molecules from sun damage so honestly it makes little difference what color you buy, the same applies to pretty much anything designed to be out in the sun commercially (the actual visible color isn't significant since UV is invisible anyway).
Basically a blue Hobie won't last any longer than a red, yellow, or dune Hobie as far as actual degradation and breakdown of the plastic material itself. However appearance may change depending on the colorant used (red may become pink over time, but this is only optical, it doesn't necessarily mean the plastic itself is degraded (because the additives protect the plastics molecule chains)). Bottom line, your boat color isn't important as far as plastic life goes.
If you go to this web site it explains a little about carbon black (the most used additive to make black plastic).
http://www.zeusinc.com/UserFiles/zeusin ... erties.pdfThose Panduit pull ties are designed for outdoor use (with UV inhibitors mixed into the resin itself) doesn't really matter what color you choose, his just happened to be blue.
The whole point in my comment about black plastic is if you buy something that was not designed specifically for outdoor use (with loads of expensive UV inhibitors added to the plastic during compounding), then your next best bet is to select a color that has carbon black in it (basically black) since carbon black naturally obsorbs UV so it will last longer in the sun on a molecular level than say a red, yellow,blue, or even white piece of plastic. Even with white plastics you have to be careful, the two most common additives to make the color white are calcium carbonate (very cheap), and titanium dioxide (very expensive), whereas calcium carbonate doesn't block uv at all and titanium dioxide blocks most UV (similar to carbon black), you have no way to find out which additive they used to make the plastic just by looking at it. Basically if it was designed and sold for outdoor (in the sun) use it usually states that on the package and is always way more expensive. The only exception to that rule is black, since 99% of the black colorant used is carbon black whether it's designed for indoor or outdoor use, it's all the same additive and it's cheap ( I'm kind of a cheap guy).
Now lets move on to tarps and pool covers all being blue. This is for an opposite and unrelated reason with relevance to the opposite end of the light spectrum infa-red (IR), just like a photographic lense filter, the color blue blocks red light. So on a blue pool solar cover or a blue tarp, the blue color obsorbs the infa-red (IR) radiation from the sun creating as much heat as possible (making your pool warmer). IR radiation doesn't attack the plastic molecules nearly as much as UV so it's not a major concern. I suspect the only reason all tarps are blue is because people like that color over the other choices, nothing whatsoever to do with anything else.
Sorry it took so much to explain such a simple thing. Sometimes it's better not to know the details of stuff, just run with it, if it's on Youtube it must be true LOL
The only travesty here is that the AI/TI is no longer available in blue, so we are all doomed. Probably why Hobie stopped selling blue AI's so they don't end up in landfills in 500,000 years) (planned obsolescence).
Bob