Sail Numbers Falling Off

Hey Everyone,

I've made a few posts now, so I suppose I should introduce myself before I keep firing off more questions.

My name's Bill, I reside in Western NY on Conesus Lake (western most of the finger lakes), and my Dad gave me his '76 Hobie 14 a couple years ago (he's wanted a bigger boat for a while, and needed to get rid of his current toy in order to convince my Mom it was necessary). I've had it for a few years now, and finally decided to fix it up a bit.

The sail is the original '76 sail (I'm not sure what the pattern is called, but it's mostly white, with 2 blue stripes near the top, top one ligher than the bottom. Sail Number is #25251).

My next problem is that the sail numbers are falling off. A couple are gone already, and several more are hanging by threads (for some reason, the "2's" are all fine). The boat/sail is old enough though that individual sail numbers available in the Hobie Catalog are a different size and font, and I'd like to keep the "retro" look that the boat has.

I understand that these numbers are just iron-ons? My wife is very good at quilting, sewing, and all things crafty in general, and would have no trouble cutting out new numbers and ironing them on with a few sheets of iron-on adhesive, but I wanted to know if anyone has ever tried this before I forge ahead? Any thoughts on how this would hold up? I also want to make sure I'm not going to damage the sail doing this. What are the sail numbers made of? Are they Dacron as well?

Along the same lines, the "Hobie Cat" decals on the hulls are mostly gone as well. Once again, the decals available in the catalog reflect the newer styles, logos, etc. (the decals on my boat are very simple - just the words "Hobie Cat" and a circled subscript 14, letters outlined, not solid, affixed to the outside of the hulls way back at the stern, slightly below the decking.) Is there any way I could get my hands on some of the older decals? Also, how do these decals adhere? They're going to be submerged in water on a regular basis, so I want to make sure they'll stay put.

I'd greatly appreciate any thoughts, ideas, or warnings about finding/fabricating new sail numbers or what I might do about those decals. Also, I might be willing to "upgrade" to newer style decals if I were sure they would actually stay on...

Thanks in advance.

-Bill

You're pretty much at the mercy of what Hobie or a dealer has in stock as far as sail numbers go. I doubt any dealers still have any thing laying around as the font changed over twenty years ago.

There are "digital eights" and "aussie" style letter/numbers available in different heights and colors, at layline.com and apsltd.com, respectively. Digital eights can concievably be cut to look like the old Hobie font.

I've also wanted new, old style decals for my freshly painted hulls, but they to are out of production. Again maybe a dealer would have some by chance. Clean the hull and wipe with acetone before applying anything. If serious oxidation has occured then some rubbing compound would be in order first.

There is a guy on the internet making custom Hobie decals which have a solid background (not individual cut characters). Maybe we could get him some pic's of old Hobie logos.

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hobiejohn at earthlink dot net
Fleet 297

Do a search on this forum for "font," I spent a while going through all my fonts and found one that matched the sail number font fairly closely, but I can't remember what it is.

My wife made new sail numbers for my boat by printing out the numbers on overhead-acetate and covering it with duct tape. Then you turn it over and cut out the numbers, peel off the acetate and voila!

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Warm regards,

Jim

Bill,

I stumbled across this and thought of you.

http://store.catsailor.com/tek9.asp?pg= ... =jseonplmc

You can purchase a yard of black dacron sail number cloth for $18, cut to match your font and put your wife to work sewing them on.

_________________
hobiejohn at earthlink dot net
Fleet 297