Whirlwind H16 Sails and other mod's.

Are the H16 Whirlwind Sails class legal? Laid over an older sail, they are identical. Just wondering if they are legal for class racing or not. Our re-established fleet is debating whether to re-sign up as an IHCA (we're not US based) fleet. We were an active fleet in the 80's & 90's but like elsewhere interest waned and the fleet eventually died. Lot' of boats lef the club and the few that remained were essentially dormant for the last 5 years at least. In the interim, people have bought after market sails and modified the boats enough that it will take considerable will power on everyone's part to rejoin if they have to reinvest to much. If sails are not an issue, this will be less of a challenge.

BTW. One of the local mods has been to put a crossbar across the hulls at the bridle points. This was supposedly done with Hobie's blessing as a way of preventing a lot of hull failures out here. I can't find anything in the IHCA/HCA rules on this, and only have the word of a few of the old hands that this is the case, so appreciate someone like mmiller's view. Another mod seems to have been to put wires under the tramps running diagonally across the boat from pylon to pylon to prevent racking I guess. In the last issue of Hotline, they featured an ad from back in the day with this kind of set up, and said that this was not class legal.

Appreciate any insight you all may have.

Cheers, PT.

Only Hobie Factory supplied sail are class legal on the Hobie 16. Whether this is an issue is up to your local racing group.

There is no factory bow spreader for a 16, but again... it is up to the local racers if they want to protest you over rules infractions. The problem would arise if your try to race outside your area on your non class legal boat.

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Matt Miller
Former - Director of Parts and Accessory Sales
Warranty and Technical Support
Hobie Cat USA
(Retired 11/7/2022)

None of the mods you listed are class legal for racing in Hobie Class Assoc. sanctioned events.

I have never seen a 16 with a spreader bar on the bow, and I've been around a long time.

The diagonal bracing wires have never been class legal from a safety standpoint. Aside from the cheese-grater effect, they're another thing to get your trap harness hooked to.

Sails must be made by Hobie Cat. They are the only ones who have the IHCA/ISAF approved patterns.

I have seen a 16 with a spreader bar on the bows, the guy did it cause the hulls were soft and had port holes installed so in big wind the bows would flex toward each other. The bar worked........ but not very well, I do not recommend it.

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Bodhisatfa

Thanks for all the feedback. I've been toying with the idea of removing the bar, as although it appears to give rigidity to the boat, it really sucks when going through chop. We get a lot of wash from vessels powering through the sailing area, and I've noticed the only boat that doesn't have the bar, fares better in this situation. Interestingly, out of the 12 H16's on the beach, only 1 doesn't have the bar, and that was a recent import from Kong Kong. I'm told that the premise behind the bar was that there were loads of hull failures happening throughout the persian gulf. After one too many warranty replacements, the bar was proposed and has been a feature of both Bahrain and Saudi boats ever since.

Sadly, I'm one of the only two boats without Hobie Factory sails, so am likely to be the boat protested. My response will be that 10 other boats are also non-compliant as well and given that we are not currently an IHCA fleet, without everyone being prepared to mod their boats, I guess the Whirlwind sails are not going to be an issue for the moment.

In the meantime I better start saving for some factory ones!

Cheers, PT.

Are the top of your hulls hard? Do they have port holes installed?

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Bodhisatfa

No problems with my hulls at all actually. Well.... apart from a whole bunch of leaks at the hull deck join which have been fixed easily enough. The hulls are from an 83 boat that was being junked. I've rebuilt everything else, but had left the bar on.

Looking back through old correspondence that the guy who began this process has, Hobie were very much in the loop when he was doing this (around 1993 or so if I recall correctly, but will have to borrow his file again to confirm). I'm not really interested in how it came about though, just want to know if it is class legal or not (which I accept it isn't). As I said, in one of the old ad's that are featured in the front of Hotline each issue, I saw a comment to the effect that the cheese grater cross wires were not, which got me thinking about what else we would all have to change to become class legal as a fleet so that we could reconstitute the old fleet #. With the majority of the fleet non-compliant, there would be too many changes required to make this viable. We'll keep sailing anyway, but can't see us becoming part of the IHCA family yet. Not much chance of taking the boats elsewhere to race (only IHCA fleet around here is in Oman and you have to drive through Saudi to get there. Getting boats in and out of Saudi is a ton of hassle and without a Visa you've got no chance) and we're the only fleet racing on the island, so guess it doesn't matter too much either way.

Thanks again for all the feedback. Will happily let the question drop now.

Cheers, PT.

I could be wrong but I don't think your boats have to be class legal to be a Hobie Fleet. Only to race. So get all your Hobie owners together and bring back your Fleet and most of all have fun sailing your Hobies, racing is fun but so is just sailing a big body of water and beach hopping !!!.

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Bodhisatfa