Brian from MA:
This is all just my personal opinion, everyone's circumstances are different. We live near the ocean now and are able to go out on the south Florida gulf coast and the keys pretty much every weekend all year round. Another big factor for us is boat storage which is very expensive in Florida (we are not allowed to park our boats in the yard or driveway) and commercial storage here can be as much as $200-$300/mo. Some of these factors might make your decision for you as to what type of boat to get. At least around here it appears most cat owners prefer not to have to step their masts every time they want to go out so they opt to store their cats at sailing squadrons and clubs (typically not cheap). Also if your mostly just going out on small lakes and don't have good natural winds, a complex big and fast cat type boat might not be in the cards unless you have some place where you can open it up (a half mile lake doesn't cut it for us, that was fine for our Sunfish, a Getaway or F18 would be ridiculous out there, but a Wave or T2 would have been perfect). When we lived in Wisconsin it was a couple hour drive to get to any sizable water. All just stuff to think about.
As campers we have always enjoyed traveling around the country with our camper in tow, and sailing kayaks on the roof, and dropping into any body of water we can find (rivers, lakes, oceans, etc) and really enjoy adventuring. Now we live in Florida even more so.
That's why we selected the Tandem Island, it can be used for anything you can imagine as a whole family SUV for the water. One day we can be miles offshore scuba diving in the keys (the boat has to be hardened a little for off shore use (from the factory it has a CE "D" classification), then the next day exploring crystal clear spring rivers, then the next week you can be running mild rapids in Colorado all with the same boat rigged as a very capable and fast kayak (we have done all that). As Hobie says there isn't any day you can't go out on a TI, wind, no wind, big wind, etc it just doesn't matter, the boat is incredibly stable and the risk of capsizing with small kids on board is very low. There is no problem getting all four of you on a TI with the tramp option (people do it all the time). And the best part it can be stored in your garage, and can be car topped if you have a large enough vehicle (we car top our TI when traveling), Typically it's around 10 minutes to rig and get on the water (even faster with a trailer), did I mention you can store it in your garage (ie... no storage fees)
If you just want speed don't get a TI, it is no speed demon (.6x windspeed is pretty typical on a stock TI) but if you want a versatile family boat that can do pretty much everything and is pretty safe, and also sails well, then the TI might be worth looking into (just my opinion). They are pretty easy to mod and add more sails, motors,etc (most TI's out there are modified to some extent), A mod'ed TI can easily keep up with waves and lasers and most other small sail boats as long as your willing to pedal, but is not in the same category as an H16 or F18 cat and never will be.
At least around here I have never seen anyone doing anything else with their Lasers, sunfish, H16's or waves other than just sailing back and forth close to where they launched, or competing in racing (sailing against each other around bouys in a small pattern), to this day I have never seen anyone fishing from any of those type boats.
I'm not trying to influence you in any way, I'm only describing what has worked well for us and our own circumstances, and share what I consider to be new thinking on what to do out on the water, check out this video, it is very cool and typical of what families do with their Tandem Islands, as I feel Hobie invented a whole new approach to sailing and family fun with it's introduction in 2010.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb4orK9MLXE[/youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb4orK9MLXE All just my personal opinion of course. Admittedly if all you want to do is one hull on a trap, and blast at 20 mph, then a real cat is what you should get, there is nothing out there that can equal that. Don't be surprised though if your wife and kids get bored watching you zoom back and forth from the shore.
Hope this helps
Bob