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Rj:
I'm about your age and am also recovering from a back injury (my back was broken diring a martial arts tournament when I was 45 (among all the other stupid stuff I have done lol).
As part of my exercise program and justification to my wife for purchasing my TI In 2010 I committed to pedaling my TI at least 15 mile per week. Pedaling my TI is one of the few things that I do that doesn't bother my back. I thought at the time with a pedal boat with full sailing rigging, this would be in my favor whereas I could sail and pedal and get my 15 miles in (piece of cake). I soon discovered that about 8 months out of the year on saturday mornings the typical winds around here are only about 4mph, and pedaling at my relaxed pace (about 40 to 50 cycles per minute (like a walking pace that anyone can maintain up to about ten hours)), because of strong currents basically on a stock TI I was only averaging 2-3 mph making for a very long day every weekend to get my promised 15 miles in. There was nothing written in our agreement about how long it should take to get my 15 miles in so being the handy fellow I am (I'm an Engineer, formerly a moldmaker). I began reading all I could about making sails myself, and over the next few years every weekend I was trying out new sail designs every saturday, it was actually very fun for me and helps me occupy my mind and hands (I get bored easily). What started out as an 8-10 hr ordeal for me 5 yrs ago to get my promised 15 miles in, with a few super simple mods to the boat (that anyone can do), I now get my 10 to 15 miles in every weekend in an hr or two). Since we live in South Florida and the Keys now, one of our other favorite past times is snorkeling and scuba diving, so we also rigged our TI for offshore diving (mostly just re-enforcing a few critical components for offshore use).
For the longest time we mostly car topped our TI, a couple years ago I finally bought a trailer, and boy has that saved my back. We now just store our TI in our garage fully rigged and ready to go, I know of no other boat that is so quick and easy to rig and get on the water. The boat is almost maintainence free, we just pull it in the drive rinse it off and pull into the garage next to my roadster, takes about 5 minutes and thats it until next week. One of the down sides of Florida is boat storage, we used to have a Sea Ray powerboat and it costs around $400/mo for dry storage, and it got very expensive filling the 80 gallon fuel tank every weekend especially when marine fuel got over $4.00 a gallon (I have no idea who can afford such a money pit, I know we can't).
Most sail boats follow what they call one design rules and you are strictly forbidden from making any changes to the boat from their original 60's era designs. There are no such restrictions on Adventure type boats (Hobie AI/TI), and the boats are incredibly easy and simple to modify for whatever specific purpose you desire (most owners do ), truly the SUV of the industry. With the mirage drives, these boats are the most versatile boats in the industry with no equal in the industry, or on anyones drawing boards for some time to come. Another cool feature about these boats that Hobie doesn't even advertise is if you take all the big sails and the AMA's off the TI (in kayak mode), the TI kayak is by far the best and fastest kayak Hobie makes ( who knew lol), (we are long time kayakers)....
Obviously we are huge fans of the design and I wouldn't trade mine in for all the tea in china (whatever the heck that means (lol)).
Hope this helps
Bob
Edit: Obviously my circumstances are unique, I'm just guessing here, but 99% of TI owners are perfectly satisfied with their TI's right out of the box with no mods at all. (I'm a 1 percenter, only because messing about is fun for me).
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