Hobie16

While I was toiling away today I noticed a new Hobie Cat on the bay. I have an old HOBIE 16 like this one with rainbow colored sails. I bought my old boat for $500. out of a local paper. A pretty good deal considering they are close to $10k for a new one now. I haven't seen a Hobie Cat 16 with white sails yet. This was the first one. I'm going to need new sails at some point and I'll probably get white ones. Colored ones cost more. A set of sails is about $1k for white ones. That's more than I spent on my whole boat, but it would really be nice to have new sails as they really do wear out.

I noticed that the mast on this boat is raked back more than on my boat. That will cause the boat to point up into the wind. The center of effort moves back and causes the bow to point up, just like on a sailboard. That's how you steer a sailboard, you move the top mast aft to go upwind and forward to go downwind. Having the mast raked back is a good thing when the wind fills in, and will make the boat faster while reaching. It's not so good when the wind is light. But these things are really fast for a sailboat. Until winsufers came along they were the fastest sailboats. Now there are faster versions.