pulled the trigger: now an owner of a brand new i11s!

hi all-
pretty excited. as of yesterday i am an owner of a brand spanking new i11s. empire kayaks, the shop where i bought it, were great. after a lengthy test drive on their already inflated model, they walked me through the entire assembly process of the mirage drives, as well as the inflation/deflation process. the boat fits back into the case very tidily. the 2017 model also comes with a cup/water bottle holder that slides onto whichever side of the chair you don't have the control mounted to.

i already have my yakattack black crate, so i think i am on the verge of becoming a kayak fisherman.

a couple questions to the i11s owners on this board:

1) when you fold the i11s up, do you fold up the rudder control hose/cable as well? is there a way to fold it up where one does not fold up the cable housing? does it matter?

2) is it possible to mount a fishfinder using the blackpak crate? i have seen roger's handcrafted solution.

3) when we took the boat down to the water, the shop owner used a hobie cart that fit into two holes in the bottom of the pedal well. is there any way you think that could be detrimental to health of the pedal well? it was pretty convenient.

anyhow, thanks for your advice so far! looking forward to the rest of summer!

1) Fold the i11s up without kinking the rudder cable housing. You should be able to coil the rudder line housing up and avoid folding them. See owner's manual for folding instructions.

2) A crate like your blackpack or Hobie H-Crate is good for housing battery your battery, etc. Also, the Vantage Seat Accessory Bag (part no. 72020117) serves as a good storage compartment for a battery and wires. You will have to get a little bit creative in mounting the head unit and transducer. Many guys are mounting a small fish finder head unit to the seat with RAM components and using an over the side arm with a glue-on base. RAM and Scotty both offer solutions. Do a forum search to see what guys have done - there's some good examples out there.

3) The carts for the iSeries are meant to plug into the Mirage Drive well. 80045101 Standard Cart for compact/hard terrain & 80045201 Trax Cart for sandy terrain

The product support page is a good resource for new owners: https://www.hobie.com/support/mirage-i11s/

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Howie Strech
Parts & Accessories Product Manager
Hobie Cat USA

Let me know if you ever get 2nd thoughts, I've got a camp outback I'm looking to sell and get an i11s. Could always work some sort of trade deal!

I predict that you are going to love the i11s, I now describe mine as a "very stable fishing platform that I can move from place to place or troll from".

I need to order one of those cup holders, anyone know the part number? cheers, roger

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2019 Outback360 'Fish Retriever'
2016 i11s 'Go Cougs!'
2012 Oasis and 2012 PA12 (moved on but not forgotten...)

This video shows a better way to fold the i11s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P781z-9A-4A

Try not to kink the cable tubing, that will avoid alot of the problems people have with cables binding.

still haven't had the chance to take her out yet, but i have made sure she is folded in a way that minimizes steering cable kinkage.

in terms of folding, that video listed is pretty good but the best way to fold it I found is, one fold of the front over the drive hole, another fold of that puts it right next to the valves, now fold the back over that entire setup, and tilt the rudder section backwards. Also definitely get the drive stow bag to keep the paddles and the drive inside. You can get a carabiner bungee and hook the pump outside as well, beats putting the body of the i11 by metal parts.

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-i11s Newport Beach, CA area.

took the i11s out for her maiden voyage this weekend: what a boat! performed beautifully! so easy to inflate and set up. my two friends had conventional plastic hull boats, and i was ready and rigged in the same amount of time as them.

i set up the seat in the high position, and was totally impressed with the stability, speed, and general maneuverability of the boat. once on the water, i found i had very little problem keeping up with any other kayakers, often able to outpace them easily. a lot of this has to do with the buoyancy of the inflatable, as well as the consistent power output of the mirage drive.

one thing i am going to add to the rolling bag will be a tough tarp that i can set down in the parking lot to make sure i don't grind any glass shards into the bottom while inflating.

anyhow, thanks to everyone on this forum. your advice and recounting of your experiences with the i11s were very valuable!

yes IDN - i found that folding the i11s so taht the rudder assembly is still the last fold on top was the best way to do it. i have been storing the drive outside the bag / just kind of carrying it around by itself. perhaps i will get the carry bag to make that task a little easier.

one aspect of this boat that is important to note: you will definitely get wet! pedaling into the wind / waves will make a lot of spray and send a certain amount of water simply washing over the deck. the interior of my blackpak was perfectly dry, though. i haven't yet purchased a drysuit, but i own a wetsuit and it worked well for the most part.

i tried not to pedal too aggressively, as other posts seem to have hinted that hard pedaling can loosen up the mirage drive seating. i also tried to pull more on the backstroke, hoping that might even out the tensions on the axle seat.

in fishing news, i had several bites but never set the hook. bluefish ate the tails off of two of my swimbaits

dry_sockets here's the iSeries cup holder kit i believe you're looking for the part number on:

i - CUP HOLDER KIT
US$ 23.99

_________________
Howie Strech
Parts & Accessories Product Manager
Hobie Cat USA

Heck, I also pulled the trigger and will be picking it up at the Hobie Bass Open at KY lake. Excited to be out there in something a little different and can't wait for the cooling mist of spray when going over wake. I'm a ginger and am completely covered, so it should make for a pleasant surprise.

Now I just have to keep it low key so the girlfriend doesn't notice the 3rd Hobie.

Also, would love to hear if anyone has hit some wake boat or massive barge wake. I was in a tourney this past weekend with some hefty whitecaps that pulled the rear of my PA out of the water on the way down. I don't want to feel like I can't face traffic by the main channels.

i think you'll be fine...remember, it has a ton of buoyancy which make is behave differently than a plastic hulled boat. it is also fairly light and moves more on top of waves than in them.

Would be interested to know if others have found the rudder control problematic. The second time I had the craft out, the base of the rudder control broke at the front of the mounting channel. Turns out it is an incredibly fragile and weak bridge of plastic about 2 mm thick and 8mm wide (top to bottom). I glued it back together with gorilla glue, but that lasted only one outing before the bridge cracked again. This is a serious design flaw. The base of the rudder control should be made of cast aluminum or some type of metal or the whole mounting system redesigned. I have now been out on the water 5 times this year.
Though the i11S tracks better with the fixed rudder, I mostly do not use it, since launching and landing in shallow water is more of a problem. The flip-down rudder works pretty well until the wind gets over 10 mph. Above that, you wind up making a lot of wide circles to get back to the "hole" where you got that last strike while fishing.

I fish this craft on our larger lakes in preference to my one-man pontoon boat. It handles wind chop just fine, and while it rocks with motorcraft wakes, I have not felt like it was going to tip me off. Fishing is an exercise in learning to live with less gear. You really need to store what you use under the seat. It is very difficult to reach behind the seat to get anything out of a crate.

Be prepared to stand in water when landing in a stiff wind. I find it better to remove the mirage drive before attempting to beach the craft. Getting out of the chair and in to the water without tripping or spilling gear is the biggest challenge there.

scrub:

i do find the general mounting of the rudder control to be odd / underengineered. i never had it snap off, like you've described, but i could certainly imagine that happening if a large stress was applied to it. i am careful to mount mine on the left side of the seat and always enter / exit the boat from the right.

Another aspect of the rudder control mount that is a little annoying is the small screw that you are meant to screw up through the mounting rail into the corresponding hole in the rudder control. I found this to be engineered at such tight tolerances that the screw was very difficult to line up / set deep enough to achieve the purpose. I ended up drilling out the hole on the rudder control just a little bit, and lubing the screw with some dry lube just to make it happen more easily. I feel like is definitely a better solution to this issue. Perhaps something with a quick release structure?

As far as storage on the boat, I have a YakAttack BlakPak that bungees down nicely right behind the seat. I find that i can access the rod holders on the side fairly easily without turning too far in my seat. When I need to dig further into the crate, one of the ways the i11s really shines is that i can turn in the seat fully to the side, and easily reach into the crate. The boat remains fully stable while I do this. It does involve getting your feet wet, but you're never leaving an i11s with dry feet anyhow, hahaha!

Anyhow, sorry to hear about your rudder control. I do feel that there are a couple spots on the i11s that could be a bit more overengineered, but I suppose there might be a tradeoff there in weight. Also, the almost totally plastic construction definitely leads to less worries about corrosion.