Hobie Cat Forums

I need some help here: What would happen if you took the jib off of the 20 and sailed it Unirig? What would you break? How would it perform? There are alot of guys losing crew in the next year or two and trying to figure a way for single handed sailing and someone brought this up as a solution. How much would we be loading up the rudders? What about tacking? Do you think the current bridle wires and forestay would give us the correct rake for such an undertaking?
I mean really, what would make this much different that Karlos' FX/One other than the chute?
Anyone help?? Please?

I don't think anything would "happen" other than you would be sailing the boat without a jib. Weather helm might increase slightly, but you could tune that out with a little adjustment. The loads on the boat are higher with a jib and two people on board than with only one.

Tacking should be pretty easy. You really shouldn't be relying on the jib to get you through a tack on the 20 anyway.

The tramp area would be nice and clean because you could remove all of the jib hardware including the jib block wire.

But, you will most likely get overpowered pretty quickly unless you weigh quite a bit over 200lb. And righting the boat may not be possible single handed.

sm

Licence to eat pizza instead of dieting. There is one big plus to this.
I just don't want to load up the rudder too much and snap those REALLY expensive 20 heads off. Also, I wonder, like the 17 unirig, if you'd need something differnt for rigging than if you were sailing sloop configuration.

cw, It will warm up enough to sail soon, trust me. Then you'll come to your senses. This is about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. We'll wave as we go flying by. I got it, eat enough pizza to be above 245 pounds so you can carry less than the 50 pounds to make minimum class weight. If Tony can do it so can you!

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Easy to sail, harder to tack.

John Eaton, I did not bring this up, one of the other guys did and I thought I would ask about it. It seems to me figuring a way to one up a 20 is easier than making payments on an FXone. Sohn seems to think it is a logical alternative, but I thought I would ask anyway. Don't want to hurt the boat, because its a bit more spendy to fix than the 14 is.
Mork, why do you say it would be hard to tack? Have you done this before? Somebody has to have at sometime.

OK Chris my apologies

Compared to the 14/16 seems like any board boat is a breeze to tack.

Back to my original point, once my ACE crew is gone (inevitable) I'll start preying on younger and or lighter people for 16 crew. Maybe bribery is in order.

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Well, Xander quit crewing about 4 years ago at 13. Jordon is about done too, I am hoping she'll start racing the 16 on her own, but who knows. I have Jacob turning 9 years old this summer, and he's already an accomplised Opti sailor, but the 20 scares the crap out of him and we'll see how much he likes the 16 this summer as after NAC on the 20, we'll be all about the 16 for the rest of the season (except Yankton, I'll be 14ing to get a little boat time before the big event)
If the 20 can be sailed single handed with out too much danger to the sailor or boat, I am all for it. I went out in 5mph wind last summer by myself on my 20 and it was a friggin' blast. Flying a hull with almost no ripples on the water. What other boat can you do that on?

Yes, we have sailed the 20 without the jib. A few regattas had so much wind, we felt our only chance was to sail without it. I have single handed the 20 with a furled jib and felt that tacking, even with boards, was still slightly more difficult than with a jib, although nowhere near as difficult as a 14.

Interesting. Do you think you could right the boat solo if you needed to?

That's what I was thinking when reading it at first, a Hobie 20 with one person? You'll be single trapped when every one else wants the race called off because of lack of wind. Per John's point, at 10mph wind you'll want to remove your jib and at 15mph, IF you do go out...suicide. No way you'll right the boat without a huge righting bag.

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Bommer swears it'll bend the castings.

And WTF does Sohn have against the FXone? He's the only person I know in the buisiness of selling stuff that says don't buy this, keep what you have so I can be homeless and destitute. Weirdo.

Just man up and buy a singlehand boat. A real one, not a fricken 14. If I don't see anyone moving toward an FXone in the near future I'm going to have to go hang out with the CRAW folk. Nobody wants that, especially the cheddar heads.

Jeez Karl, why don't you go all militant on me. I was just asking a question as to if it would work is all. I own a 20, so if it DOES work, it would be in my best interest to explore that before selling my $5500 investment for $1700 so I can buy an $18000 boat and spend every regatta kicking your ass up and down the lake and listen to you whine about how much better my frog boat is than yours.
I don't know what the answer is, I don't even really know what the question is in fact. If you don't have crew, and you have 2 doublehanded boats, what should you do?
I thought I had heard Bommer talking about too much load on the rudders too, but Sohn and the board don't seem to see it that way. I wonder.

I just can't see you breaking a rudder simply because you're sailing without the jib. I've seen plenty of people sail the 20 with the jib rolled up. Especially if you're single handing the boat. You'll be overpowered way before you're making enough power to break things.

sm

They aren't $18k, Well they are if you buy every single thing for it. I don't know what the euro has done to the price but it would've been about $15k for one loaded the way I wanted.

I think Paul was trying to depower in high wind with crew when he did that. I think he actually did bend a set, but that was with crew and more wind than you could handle singlehand on that monster. I know if my 160lb butt tried it I would be cartwheeling across the lake.