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PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 11:25 am 
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I'm in the market for, but have not yet purchased, a Hobie 16 with a trailer. About how much does the Hobie 16 + the trailer weigh? I'm trying to determine whether or not my car will be able to tow it.


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PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 11:28 am 
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Location: Oceanside, California
800 lbs? 320 for the boat.

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Hobie Cat USA
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 11:47 am 
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Location: Memphis, TN
I towed my Hobie 16's on galvanized trailers for 3 years using my 2003 Mini Cooper with no sweat 3-5hrs. If you're going cross country at interstate speeds you might want a bigger vehicle.

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PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 5:20 pm 
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Location: New Brighton, PA
You should tell us what type of car you drive or will be towing with, the trailer will be the difference in weight, aluminum or galvanized. I have friends that tow an 18 with a KIA sonata and have no problem. Yet my girlfriend has a Nissan Versa and I don't want her towing her 16 with it because of the CVT transmission.

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PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 7:39 pm 
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Location: Clinton Lake, KS
One of the guys locally tows an H16 pretty regularly with a Prius without problem. He uses something a little bigger for long trips... But still.. about an hour to and from the lake all the time behind the Prius..

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PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 11:26 pm 
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We regularly tow ours with a Honda accord 4 cylinder. That's on a galvanized trailer plug all the gear we need for a weekend of racing. Every time we head down to a race we are driving at least 240 to get down to the coast and then the trip back.

A less powerful car could do it easily. Driving around town you'd never know it was back there. On the interstate the weight really isn't a factor. Its the aerodynamic drag that starts to kill your gas mileage and make the car work a little hard.

Move to an aluminum trailer and its even easier. Its like taking 300 pounds off the back end.


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PostPosted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 2:29 am 
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Location: Columbus, Indiana
Back in '85, I pulled my new Hobie 16 with my old '81 VW Rabbit, up and down some fairly steep hills without a problem. I did have to tie several pieces of unsplit firewood to my front bumper to climb up my buddy's Dave gravel driveway as it was very steep and I needed the weight on top of my drive wheels........ :shock:

Thank God for gin and tonic........ :lol:

Three years later, I got a Pontiac Firebird so I could travel out of state with my boat...no one passed me on the highway...except cops..... :lol:

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PostPosted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 8:05 am 
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Location: Hatteras Island, NC.
Depends on the trailer!- My 16, galvanized trailer with box and deck, all boat gear but no additional cargo weighs a nick over 780 lbs. Trailer gvw was I think, 1200 lbs. I have towed it behind all manner of 4cyl vehicles without issue. Slowest was, by far my '86 4cyl CJ-7, especially uphill! Beyond that one, I have towed behind several Mazda trucks, A Toyota truck, an earlier Jeep, even a Pinto. All except the CJ-7 did fine!

Dave


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PostPosted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 7:19 am 
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Thanks, this is super helpful! I have a 2008 Mini Cooper Convertible…


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PostPosted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 10:31 am 
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regularly tow my h16 on an old steel trailer with a subary outback. tows just fine. needing the awd on occasion to go in directly off the beach rather than the lauch ramps. also with my wife's minivan tows it great and hardly know the rig is back there.


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PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2017 4:45 pm 
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OceanStar 9...is your mini cooper the mini cooper S or the regular mini cooper? Have you tried it?

I'm trying to figure out if I can tow with a prius. A guy on here said he's got a mini cooper S, which has 163 horses. Wondering if my prius (which I'm thinking of buying) would be able to tow it at 121 horses.

I'm confident I'll be able to stop the load, the brake systems probably don't vary that much.


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PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2017 6:47 pm 
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Location: Charlottesville, VA
BboySlug wrote:
I'm trying to figure out if I can tow with a prius. A guy on here said he's got a mini cooper S, which has 163 horses. Wondering if my prius (which I'm thinking of buying) would be able to tow it at 121 horses.


This is well trodden ground. Cars with under 100 hp tow regularly with no problems; the power is not an issue.

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2017 7:22 pm 
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Location: Opelika/Lake Martin, Alabama
My tow vehicle is a 2006 Nissan Quest 3.5 S. I towed my H16 4 hours from the Florida Gulf Coast to my house, up and down some hills and was really impressed that the vehicle handled it all with no problems. I was mostly on a 2 lane highway and some interstate driving. When I was on the interstate, I had to watch my speed because the boat towed so easy, at times I noticed I had crept up to about 75 mph and slowed down, Lol. What really impressed me was that my fuel economy didn't seem all that affected either.
I have seen Hobie Cats towed with smaller vehicles, but I prefer something with a V6. My van has an overdrive cut off switch also but the boat is so light I don't even use it.

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1984 H16 Yellow Nationals Redline, "Yellow Fever"
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2017 5:30 pm 
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Location: Lake of the Ozarks
HobieMarty wrote:
My van has an overdrive cut off switch also but the boat is so light I don't even use it.

Be very, very careful with this decision!
Too many stories of burned up transmissions, mostly older vehicles with three speed plus OD automatics.
It's much cheaper to be safe and run in drive/third/OD off, and suffer slightly on gas mileage than replace your transmission.
Your engine wont wear out sooner running even a thousand rpm higher.

(not directed specifically at you HobieMarty)

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