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I'm agreeing with Keith now, that the shoulder bolts are better after looking at his used plastic shoulder bolts vs my own used standard hobie plastic bolts. I also think the sleeve idea has great merit in reducing the likelyhood of breakage over time thru many small hits.
My own observations are my nylon bolts show deformation over time just with normal use in the standard conditions many of us sail in regularly (boat wakes, chop, and just the normal jerking of the AMA's around in normal use). No major hits or collisions involved,(yea I've had plenty of those too, but ya kinda know when you hit a dock or channel marker you did a bad thing).
The actual sheer force of the pin is determined by the plastic itself, I'm now thinking Keith's shoulder bolt and the sleeve are still below the threshold of the AKA bar folding (you never want that to happen) yet holds up much longer under normal use.
I called the original design a ticking time bomb that will eventually fail even with just normal use. As pointed out to all of us by Tom K, and experienced first hand (in horror) by Keith.
Actually I feel Hobie should look into making this change permanent in my opinion (moving foward), I doubt the cost of the nylon bolts themselves is more than a couple cents different.
I of course still plan to keep my safety lines just in case.
This will mean the list price of the boat will go up.....
Currently $6649US
New price $6649.10 (just kidding)
My 10 cents worth
FE
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