A Hobie 16 to teach myself the ropes???

[donradcliffe]

I learned to sail on mono dinghies, then bought a Hobie and learned a lot more. I capsized a mono dinghy once in 15 years but it was a regular occurrence with the Hobie. The beach cat will quickly teach you the unique cat dynamics of decreasing stability with increasing angle of heel, the power developed when you bear away, and how to respond to gusts at varying apparent wind angles. I was talking to Chris Wight after a couple of his 55 ft cats flipped, and he was seriously thinking of throwing in a Hobie with each new purchase of his big cats.

[Kite]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

I learned to sail on mono dinghies, then bought a Hobie and learned a lot more. I capsized a mono dinghy once in 15 years but it was a regular occurrence with the Hobie. The beach cat will quickly teach you the unique cat dynamics of decreasing stability with increasing angle of heel, the power developed when you bear away, and how to respond to gusts at varying apparent wind angles. I was talking to Chris Wight after a couple of his 55 ft cats flipped, and he was seriously thinking of throwing in a Hobie with each new purchase of his big cats.

I have the similar thoughts in my head but cannot back up with experience.

[Kite]

Originally Posted by thomm225

Really?!

For a beginner?

i don't think they are renting Dinghy's like those in the video above to your average Joe that wants to rent one for $20/hour in 20-25 knot winds

As far as sail trim etc you can lose a beach cat race with your sheeting wrong by about an inch plus about 10-20 other small variables.

When racing beach cats especially solo with a spinnaker you better know more than basic tacking and gybing techniques.

Rounding the downwind mark on a beach cat coming in at 20 knots or so and getting the spinnaker down just before rounding as a solo sailor is challenging no matter your skill level

Yeah, I can rent and sail that all by myself on a very windy day. :b

[Kite]

Originally Posted by thomm225

I do miss some of the brave women that would sail/race with me though and trap out when they were mid 40's going on 50.

The lady in the costume is Cheryl age 63 or so now in photo. In her 40's if she were male she would have played linebacker on some NFL team but she was the most feminine female I ever met just with huge muscles! She was an accountant.

The other is Debbie and she was a risk manager/nurse at a local hospital and was 46 in the photo.

Both were girlfriends also which is good and bad if you want to race for real and they want to enjoy their drink during the prestart !! (and they are enjoying all the pretty sail colors etc!)

Both raced with me when I had my Nacra 6.0

There were 3-4 other's that I don't have pictures of but these two were the most fun.

Notice no boom on the Nacra 6.0 behind Debbie....just the lowest batten

Fun times.

[Redreuben]

Sailing a small boat is a good plan but how will you learn ?
Crew.
Sail as crew with an experienced skipper and race, devote yourself to a skipper for a full season racing and you won’t get better training anywhere.
Then get your own boat and learn the next level of skills as the skipper and helm.

[tamicatana]

If you want baby steps, get a Wave, then move up from there. No need to waste time in monohulls. If you want to race, there is a very active 1D fleet in Waves.

Another simple option is what I always called ‘the better-thought-out Hobie,’ the Prindle 16 or the 18(asymmetrical hulled, not the 18-2). Problem is, these are getting hard to find. But the Prindle is a better design than the Hobie: more bow volume. Hobie Alter designed the 16 as a boat to get out to big waves. At the time, no such things as tow-in surfing, you see. So the H16 was designed around that.

For my part, I started in a 16, then went to NACRA/Wharram, then F-boat, now a Catana. Crewed on plenty other boats, including leaners, along the way. Been 40 years now…

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Redreuben

Sailing a small boat is a good plan but how will you learn ?
Crew.
Sail as crew with an experienced skipper and race, devote yourself to a skipper for a full season racing and you won’t get better training anywhere.
Then get your own boat and learn the next level of skills as the skipper and helm.

When I bought my first old Hobie 16 I just went out and sailed it alone in light winds

I looked at a points of sail chart a couple times also and had "trained" before that binge watching the Americas Cup starting back when Big Dennis went down to Perth I think it was to get the old mug back from the loss in 1983 to John Bertrand and the Australia II team

After 2-3 times out alone I started racing as Skipper with my 10 year old son as crew.

You learn really fast when you are the Skipper of your own boat and racing. These races were in Tennessee and were quite different than the hard core racing I would encounter on the Gulf Coast where they were already using spinnakers on Beach cats in the early 90's

Also early on the racing and my being competitive overcame any fear of the conditions as a newbie sailor. I may not have sailed on some of those days if I hadn't already pre-paid to race as the winds would be quite high and temps low

Our first 100 mile race was in September 1997 and we did it on a Nacra 6.o. My crew, my son, was 15 by then and this was on the Gulf Coast.

There were 82 boats on the starting line that year off Leeside Park Ft Walton Beach at 7 am for that race. We finished the race at 7:30 pm but it would have been nice to have had a spinnaker for the last 45 miles or so

There were Hobie 16's in this race also but they finished in the wee hours of the following day or during the Awards Ceremony they'd be sailing across the start finish line at 9 am the following day! (and everyone would cheer for them which paused the ceremony)

[thomm225]

These days though in most places in the USA there is very little racing going on for beach cats.

That occurred for many reason one being valuable beach front property and no place to launch or park.

We used to setup right on the beach and use beach wheels to get the boats to the water.

So without the racing I think I would have sailed a Hobie 16 maybe 2-4 years then if on the coast possibly get a monohull and have the Hobie Cat also.

The slips were $50.00/month at the apartment on the water where we lived in the late 90's. I kept my beach cats tied up just above the high water mark (there's a seawall there now so no more beach cat parking)

At the dock was a Cape Dory 30 (with wheel on the stern), a Tartan 30, S2 (around 30') Soverel 30 (which I crewed on), Tayana 36/37?, Bristol 27, C&C 37, etc.

I also learned at lot on that dock listening to the old salts and drinking beer almost every afternoon for a couple years. It was the hangout for us sailors and some that just wanted to be out there

Picture shows how the place looks now after being rebuilt following Hurricane Ivan 2004. There was 8' of water in the lower floor apartments during the surge. I had moved across town by that time but was considering moving back one month before Ivan hit. If I had it would have been a FEMA Trailer for us afterward if we could find one.

Iven came right in Pensacola Pass......basically (I-10 bridge after Ivan)

[boatman61]

Forget the Hobie and get one of these... easy to transport and just as much fun..
https://www.minicatamaran.eu/

[thomm225]

The days of the Hobie 16 are definitely numbered, but for a few decades, they were great.

135,000 built and sold at last count 5-8 years ago. (still in production as of 2015)

https://sailboatdata.com/sailboat/hobie-16

[thinwater]

A a life long multihull sailor, larger and small, a Hobie is perfect for learning cats. I've sailed both, and a beach cat is a better analog for what cats do when over pressed than a mono. Tacking and jibing a cat is different.



As for all the pitchpole and capsize bravado, that only happens if you don't pitch your days and you push it on purpose, obviously. Hobies can be reefed.I went over a few times, but only when I was asking for it by pushing too hard. Like any dinghy, watch the weather, and head in when it gets strong.


Great teachers.


The Hobies they rent these days don't count. They are designed to be idiot proof and thus are poor teachers. They are also slow and boring. Get a used fiberglass Hobie 16, Prindle 16 or 18, Nacra 5.2, or any other 16-18" fiberglass beach cat.

[sck5]

I have sailed all kinds of boats from a sunfish to a 70 ft. monohull. But the boat that gave the greatest sensation of SPEED was my Hobie. Fast and right down at water level. Best adrenaline boat I have been on but wouldnt be my pick to cruise anywhere.

[Bobby Lex]

Originally Posted by thinwater

As for all the pitchpole and capsize bravado, that only happens if you don't pitch your days and you push it on purpose, obviously. Hobies can be reefed. I went over a few times, but only when I was asking for it by pushing too hard.

Capsizing a Hobie is like falling down while skiing. It's part of the experience. And it's a valuable learning tool. You learn to balance right on the edge of control. When you're right there on the edge, you learn to react quickly to a wave or a gust that could otherwise tip you over. Which is exactly why sailing a Hobie (or other small sailboat) teaches you so much about how to sail.

And speaking about being "right on the edge"....one of the absolutely coolest sensations/experiences on a Hobie is "getting a hull up". That's where you find the perfect combination of wind angle and mainsheet trim that results in your windward hull lifting up out of the water. One brief moment of inattentiveness and over you go! But the idea is to see how long you can manage to keep perfectly balanced with your hull up without dropping your hull back down into the water and of course without going over the other way.

Like everyone is saying: That's how you really learn to sail!

Bob

[thomm225]

For all you folks that sailed Hobie 16 and learned on them, when you add a spinnaker to a beach cat the thrill definitely increases.

I can remember looking back for gusts so I could react just before it hit for speed and so I wouldn't pitchpole. Like on a 30 mile race the last 15 being downwind sailing singlehanded.

Sometimes though you screw up and correct the wrong way as if sailing upwind which can create some awesome pitchpoles. This usually occurs later in the day or after a few beers between races

We racers were almost always sailing on the edge just inside the envelope between control and out of control

One of our events was sailed just under the wind limit which I believe is 21-22 knots steady for 5 miles.

Most of the races were in 18 knots or so plus gusts in the mid 20's. I actually flipped waiting between races once.

Photo with black spinnaker is after crossing finish line and I let the hull down. During distance races we would trap-out and sail with the spinnaker. If the winds were fairly study I cleated in my spinnaker sheet to some cam cleats I had added to both hulls. Then sailed the luff curve.

Usually during buoy races though we didn't trap out on the downwind due to more gybing etc

Also my Nacra I17R (weight 300 lbs) has with spinnaker up the dsame sail area as my 6600 lb Bristol 27

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by sck5

I have sailed all kinds of boats from a sunfish to a 70 ft. monohull. But the boat that gave the greatest sensation of SPEED was my Hobie. Fast and right down at water level. Best adrenaline boat I have been on but wouldnt be my pick to cruise anywhere.

These guys hit 26 knots on their H16

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39YCsV1o49o