Hi Pirate,
I've been following this thread on and off from the beginning.
I think you contradict yourself in the last sentence.
Quote:
So easy to fix but so far no success....Pirate
I don't think that if it was that easy Hobie wouldn't have fixed it so far. Coming from an engineering background one of the more difficult things to get is exactly the right point where you can get a fail safe to break and still guarantee that it will protect what it is there for, without nuisance breakages.
Doesn't matter whether you are looking at fuse sizes and delays for high power amplifiers or the shear pin on a prop or hi-lift jack.
The only real way of measuring sailing loads on that pin would be to strain gage a brass pin and test it under a wide range of actual conditions you expect it to work in. That alone is an intensive process probably involving quite a bit of travel and sailing time (if hobie are looking for volunteers...
) and you can't really strain gage a plastic pin as you'd have to reduce it's diameter at crucial points.
At the same time as you do this you'd probably strain gage the aft of the hull to try and determine stress levels with a more solid pin.
And you'd probably need to record rudder position too but that could be done inside the hull using the rudder control lines.
All the data would be recorded in real time to a datalogger.
Then armed with that data you could build a test rig to replicate the recorded load curves in a lab using plastic pins to see what sort of stress that places on it and whether it breaks, and carefully monitor the transom. I'm not even sure if the stress indicating paints you can get would work on the polypropylene.
It's a big project.
Hobie have already made other changes in the twist & stow on the AI's so they are fixing issues that they can fix.
I'm guessing - and Matt can step in if he likes, or not - that if there were a quick fix they'd have done it in a heart beat. There isn't a quick fix so it's taking a while to sort out.
In the mean time, I've been one of the lucky ones it appears who've not had a pin failure on water on either of my two AI's. It's bound to happen sooner or later, but in the mean time it means I don't have to panic when my kids forget to pull the rudder up in the shallows.
I can't believe how long this thread has become. I don't see anyone balancing the length of this thread with a corresponding positive thread on what is overall a sensational product.
Maybe cut them some slack. They'll fix it if it can be fixed. They have a track record so far with me of being super helpful.
Just my 2c worth.
Dave
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A Hobie Sport and 2 Hobie Adventure Island's -
Papaya &
Hibiscus - I couldn't make up my mind so like I usually end up doing with lures I bought both and hid the credit card statement