potentially new oasis owner

ladies/gentlemen

good morning..

i am looking for some opinions before i purchase a kayak (most likely a mirage oasis).

please be patient because i feel a little history is important..

i am recovering from a crushed femur (motorcycle accident in feb and will not be getting back to riding as it will put too much worry on my wife. i have been thinking about replacing he motorcycling thing with the kayaking thing.

we rented a kayak saturday and was out for a little over 2 hours. while great fun, the rented kayak made my good leg fall asleep and the provided back support - didn't support.

i will have to say the the overall experience with the rented unit was uncomfortable enough to start me to reconsider the whole idea.

now i know this is mostly due to the 'rented' issue. the hobie costs a substantial chunk of money and i wouldn't want to experience the same with it.

if i do take the leap, i will be looking to use the oasis ~50% single for fishing. i have access to both calm channels/inlets/bays and the ocean.

will i be buying replacement seats right away?
what are 'right out of the box' upgrades?
what are you experiences with the mirage drive? (is it prone to getting fouled with grasses, etc)

what are your experiences with it generally?

i would appreciate all opinions and information.

thank you
Steve
Virginia Beach

There is a good dealer in VA Beach, located on VA Beach Blvd. Sorry don't know the name since it was a couple of years ago since I visited. I had good dealing with them. I am sure they have demo's. Try out the different models before you make a purchase. It really depends on your injuries, but the Hobie's have a lots of built in adjustments to help with comfort. Good Luck.

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I'm right 98% of the time. The other 3% I don't worry about.

My wife and I have a 2009 Oasis and for two people it is a great yak.

The 2011 Oasis is a big improvement.

There are sturdy and excellent sailors on this board, who can apparently handle their Oasis with no problem in the single yakker mode. I can't.

I'm a sturdy/healthy and active 72 year old with right rotator and bicep head/shoulder problems. There is no way that I can handle the chores of getting an Oasis ready to launch, launch, return to launch site, reload and go home by myself.

We ended up with a Malone Sport Trailer to haul our Oasis to and from the launch site and to store in our driveway with a Hobie cover. I spent a few hundred $'s on Thule and Yakima bars and other devices to load and hold our Oasis on the top of our Ridgeline. The hassle and probability of dropping the Oasis during the loading and loading process wasn't worth it. Plus the potential hazards of hurting one of us during the process came close one day when my wife dropped her end of the Oasis while trying to load it. So we went with the Malone Trailer and the black box extra to hold our seats and PFDs in on the trailer.

We have the wide wheel Trax system which works well getting the Oasis from the Ridgeline from the parking areas to the launch sites, . Often the distance is over 100 yards. Getting the Oasis in the water on and off the Trax system with two people is a do able challenge in the water at the launch sites. I wouldn't want to try it by myself.

I have a Freedom Hawk 12 Kayak with the retractible floatation toons on the back. It weighs in at 72# and I can get it up on and off my Ridgeline truck bed with the load extender fairly easily. If I take the 3'+ poontoons off, it is really easy to throw the Freedom Hawk into the back of the Ridgeline and secure it with the Cabela Net Extender. The FH12 is not powered by a Mirage unit, and I would not be able paddle back the 1-2 miles in wind and tide with my bad shoulder.

So, I'm in the process of deciding to buy an Outback or Revolution for solo fishing and kayaking use because of our winds and/or constant tidal impact in our area.

We bought the Hobie seat air cushion for my wife, as she had a problem getting by an hour sitting without hurting her bad hip. With the cushion she can go for a couple of hours. The chair/seat that came with my Freedom Hawk was terrible, and I got an after market seat for it. The seat is great in the FH12, and I have done 3-4 hours sessions on the seat with no problem. However, it probably wouldn't work on our Oasis.

Try to limit your trips to an hour or so at first and build up your stamina, butt and legs for longer trips.

You live in a great fishing/boating area, and the right Hobie/Hobies should begood tools/fun for your area. The newer Oasis mirages are very seaworthy, stable, fast and fun to use with two people.

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2009 Oasis
2012 Freedom Hawk Pathfinder

Sundancer, welcome to the forum. We're on our 3rd generation Oasis and absolutely love it.

Hopefully it wasn't a Mirage Drive!

Many dealers have demonstration boats. Before making any final decision, you should take a demo and make sure your leg is comfortable propelling your boat.

Most owners like their seats, although everybody's back is different. Personally I have replaced the stock seat bottom with the optional "i-comfort" Hobie option -- huge improvement IMO.
You should get a cart. I'm a big fan of the standard cart for the Oasis unless you're going across soft sand. In that case, the Trex cart would be the preferred cart.

I'd start out with at least one set of "ST" fins. They're just about as easy to push as the standard fins and more efficient. If/when you find your leg handling this well, you will probably want to get the ST Turbo fin upgrade for your Drive. The standard fins are very rugged though and can be a preferred choice for use over oyster beds and other such abusive underwater objects.

The current Mirage Drives are great -- easy to install and remove (after you learn the technique), durable and relatively easy to maintain. The fins do collect sea grass though. You can either pop the Drive up and down to release it (takes about 15 seconds) or ignore it and let it slough off naturally.

Some folks mistakenly believe the Mirage Drives are limited in shallow water to hull displacement plus length of the fins. In fact, the fins can operate using a flutter kick in very shallow water, as this composite pic shows:


I've been using the Mirage Drive system for over 10 years and have not found anything else like it -- have tried a variety of paddling and pedaling kayaks. The biggest advantages IMO are 1) hands free operation, 2) speed and range, 3) superior performance against wind and chop, and 4) versatility (they make fun little sail boats as well). Additionally, Hobie has an excellent reputation of standing behind their products.

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2009 Oasis
2012 Freedom Hawk Pathfinder

the dealer in Va Beach is WildRiverOutfitters. Ranger has it right...theyre good people and should have a few demos

gents

thanks for all the information.

i am starting to lean toward the Odyssey.

no mirage pedestal to intrude into the deck space and i can retro a trolling motor onto it easily to supply aux propulsion.

i know of WildRiver and will tt them about a demo this week..

thanks again
Steve

You will love any Hobie kayak with a Mirage drive. Your local dealer will indeed have demos to try, and 2011 models have lots of incredible upgrades.

Last year I took up kayaking right after major surgery and quickly bought a used Hobie Mirage Classic. I loved it and used it on the water several times a week for hours at a time.

This is a gold-plated problem, but the Classic had no cup holder or reachable storage, so I sold it two weeks ago for the same price I paid (Mirage drives hold their value). After lots of research and investigation, I bought a 2011 Revolution.

The dealer let me try a demo model. Wow, what a difference: fabulous padding in the seat, inflatable & adjustable lumbar support, adjustable Mirage pedals for my long legs, the Twist & Stow rudder, storage galore, and ta-da---a handy cup holder.

I picked the Revo up on Friday and have been out every day. Mine is the quietest and fastest on the lake; I can sneak up on birds to watch them and load/unload it alone, thanks to a cart and trailer setup.

Best investment ever, according to lots of Hobie owners--you can't go wrong, and it will hold its value for years. Watch YouTube videos for testimonials.

Good luck and quick healing. Go Hobie and you won't go back.

Good morning..

looking at this from another direction....

if i buy the Odyssey, can it be retrofitted with the Mirage drives later on??

if i get the Oasis and find i can't use the Drives, can i sell them (here maybe) and would you care to give me an idea as to what they are worth??

Thanks
Steve

Nope. The Mirage Drive boats have a big hole in the middle of them, that can be filled with a plug (but not completely sealed up) when the Mirage Drive isn't in use. You would certainly have the option of having one person paddle, while the other pedals. The best thing about a Mirage Drive tandem kayak, compared to a traditional tandem kayak (like the Odyssey) is that you don't have to stay in sync with your partner. You can pedal as you want, and you'll never be in the way of your partner, and the boat will steer where you want it to go.



Yup. You could sell them. Here would be a good place to try. They're worth a few hundred bucks or more when they're new (better check to find out exactly) but if you have a Mirage Drive boat, and you're missing a Mirage Drive or two, you're probably going to hurt your resale value more then just keeping the drives. I could be wrong on that, but people by Mirage Drive boats because of the Drive.

If you're comparing the Odyssey and the Oasis, you're not even looking at Apples and Oranges, it's like looking at Apples and Siberian Tigers. They're completely different, even though they look the same. Try to get out to a dealer, look at the differences, see if you can schedule a demo ride in each boat. That should clear up most of your questions about the two boats.

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We don't know if you tried an Oasis or not or even a Hobie Mirage.

Try an Oasis for a limited time. Do a 30 minute pedaling trip out and then back with some rests, including getting your feet over the side during a couple of minutes.

If you used an Oasis or any Hobie Mirage yak for over 2 hours on the first trip, a lot of you will be sore.

Last year it took several weeks for my wife and I to get from 1 hour to several hours in our new Oasis.

"we rented a kayak saturday and was out for a little over 2 hours. while great fun, the rented kayak made my good leg fall asleep and the provided back support - didn't support."

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2009 Oasis
2012 Freedom Hawk Pathfinder

no.. the rentals were all Ocean Kayaks...

and the seat was something that bearly covered my lower back.. i don't think the thing even attached at the bottom. my feet were at my wife's hips (and i have a 29" inseam).

sundancer:
We had a 2007 Oasis that we traded in for our Tandem Island last year. We had over 500 happy miles on the Oasis when we traded it in (no regrets). I'm in my 60's and not in the greatest shape, my main complaint about the oasis was when I got tipped over in rough seas /deep water by a powerboat wake I couldn't get back into the boat and got exhausted trying as I was being carried out to sea by the strong current, fortunately my now favorite wife (since she saved me) came to my rescue with the Revolution and helped me get back onboard the Oasis, once I was safe she headed back to shore and beat me back by 30 minutes. Even though we had practiced many times in our pool boarding the kayaks before ever going in the ocean, it's not the same as when in rough conditions. The Oasis sits pretty high and is fairly narrow, in my opinion much more tipsy than the Revolution, AI, or TI. Our Oasis was also very awkward to get on top of our car because there was no good place to grip it while loading, I actually injured my back badly trying to load the Oasis on top of our car and was not able to Kayak for 6 months. Believe it or not I actually find it easier to load our TI which is 3 ft longer and 25-30 lbs heavier because I can grab the lifting handles when hoisting up. To make a long story short (too late), we don't use our tandem kayaks in tandem as often as we thought we would, my wife would rather kayak alone on her Revo. 80% of the time I would be solo in the Oasis really unable to even come close to my wife as far as keeing up with her, her boat is clearly twice as fast as my solo Oasis, she would sail around me in tight circles taunting me to keep up. There is a reason they call tandem kayaks 'divorce boats'. People just smile when we go by yelling at each other, ( we are opposite personalities) if I yell go left, she says no I want to go right, then boom we hit the shoal, (it happens all the time). With separate boats we go out together and lash the boats together holding hands, and smiling), what she didn't realize holding my hand lovingly was she was dragging me along, there was no way I could even begin to keep up with her revo with me driving the Oasis. Now we have the Tandem Island (in kayak mode) the TI is even faster than the Revolution even solo, and paddles much straighter. We still have the same problem being together in the same boat but at least now I can keep up with her if we have two. You mentioned going solo most of the time, if it were me I would start with a Revolution (it's by far the best Kayak on the market today) and add a second one later, If you want to go out together just rent the second one for a while to you are sure. If you have two boats try my 'lets hold hands ploy' if she starts leaving you in the dust (it's humiliating when they circle around you taunting). The Revo is much harder to tip than the Oasis and much lighter, faster, easier to car top etc, etc, etc. An added bonus is the Revo is a fishermans dream, my older Oasis had little storage and would flip over if I tried to cast over the side (actually happened several times, to be fair, most other Oasis fishermen typically put heavy ballast in the hull, I never did, except the keel weight when sailing, but thats another story)). Also to be fair the newer Oasis (2011) is much better, in my opinion the older Oasis's were a POS.

There is no comparison to Ocean Kayaks when compared to Hobies, Hobies are the best there is nothing else on the market that compares and are well worth the extra.
Bob

sundancer:
In my last response I called the older Oasis design a POS, that statement was a little strong. In it's prime it was an excellent design, it's just in the last few years many Hobie improvements in their other designs made that older Oasis design obsolete as compared to the newer designs. They brought the design back up to date current/superior with anything else in the marketplace with the 2011 Oasis model.
I recommend test driving several models to get a feel for what best fits your situation. The dealer in our area has monthly demo days at a local lake we you can try out any Kayak you like (thats what we did before purchasing anything), see if you local Hobie dealer has something like that. The superior mirage pedal drive system on Hobies is what seperates them from anything else in the marketplace, as long as you can use the pedals with your bad hip.
Bob
Bob

You'll discover that an Ocean kayak is worlds apart from a Hobie. Paddling is also vastly different than pedaling. If your leg doesn't take to pedaling, a Mirage Drive would not be a good choice. Paddling is designed to be an auxiliary source of propulsion (and exercise) on the Oasis -- there are better paddlers and better values for your money if paddling is your preferred mode of operation.

On the other hand, the Mirage Drive is by far the best pedaling kayak made, and has a host of advantages over paddling. You can't beat it for trolling or holding position in moving waters (fishing); They have excellent therapeutic value for post-injury strengthening and rehab (in most cases). My physical therapist endorses them anyway.

A good demonstration will answer your questions. Most people who try it love it!