We have an older TI, I weighed the bare hull, it weighs 105 lbs. The boat with the AMA's, sail, and mirage drives weighs 200 lbs (I weighed it). None of this is included in the 600 lb weight capacity. I have twin Honda 2.3 outboards that weigh 27 lbs ea, my spinnaker weighs around 4-5 lbs, my wing weighs about 4-5 lbs. my bow sprit weighs about 2 lbs, and my mast topper weighs around 2 lbs. The motor mount weighs around 3-4 lbs. I always carry 2 gallons of fuel (13 lbs), my first aid kit and emergency kit with tools, flares, and night lights weighs around 5lbs, (all in one dry bag).
I do have a planing mod (foam/fiberglass) that weighs 9 lbs mounted at the stern, but it gives me 100 lbs of additional flotation (I weighted it down in our pool while removed to determine the flotation).
Because I have up to 260sq ft of sail available and the twin big ole outboards the boat scoots along pretty well even when overloaded a tad.
I feel with a stock boat Hobie states 600 lbs (passengers and gear), that number is pretty accurate and I feel should be adhered to.
We have an inflatable 4 person (650lb capacity) that we inflate and tow behind our TI to store scuba tanks gear and big ice coolers (for food and drink, or for spear fishing catch), the water around key west is pretty shark infested, it's best to never have any catch or blood anywhere near the TI, unless you enjoy 6ft bull sharks bumping their noses into your tramps.
We also often tow other kayaks, and other adventure type boats behind our TI (like a mothership). The key is to tow everything directly behind the centerline of the TI at least 15ft away from the TI (otherwise you lose all steering ability). When towing another TI you want the other TI about 20-30 ft away, tethered at around 50 degrees off your stern (in clean air) with their sail fully deployed. Using the apparent wind I create at 8mph their sail reduces the drag, so we can main around 7-8 mph together even in vey light winds (5mph winds). Lol, I always make everyone pedal as well.
That's what we do, we like to snorkle just off key west only in calm flat water in winds under 5mph. With sometimes as many as 6-8 people, but never more than 3 adults in the TI, everyone else gets towed in the dingy or in our inflatable kayaks (we have two inflatable kayaks), we used to have 3 additional hard shelled Hobie kayaks as well but we sold them because we never used them,(too many kayaks to haul around).
Bottom line we just have a lot of fun and love our TI, we use it for anything and everything. I would never go out overloaded in anything but flat water, and very light winds, and never more than a half mile of shore.
FE
EDIT:
Here is a pic of us at a sand bar just off Siesta key in Sarasota with 6 on board. We had visitors who had never been sailing so I took them about a half mile out in open ocean (off Siesta Key), just so they could say they went sailing in the ocean (lol). I have no idea how much weight we had but it had to be tipping 900 lbs. The boat is widened quite a bit and both the AMA's are normally 4-6" out of the water on flat water, as you can see in the pic both AMA's are in the water. I didn't have my planing hull mod installed that day (it's removable), but should have (lol). The round hatches were underwater (a pretty good sign your overloaded). I normally take in between a cup and a quart of water during the day inside the hull, that day we took in a couple gallons. I suspect water comes in pretty much everywhere.
One thing about these boats and speed is if your traveling over 8-9 mph (mine tops out around 15mph in light air), all the scupper holes reverse direction and become drinking fountains, so the entire rear of the boat fills up with water up to the gunwales, when severly overloaded, the stern is actually under water (without my hull mod installed). Fortunately the water is warm here (lol). Obviously I have everything heavily re-enforced including my re-enforced tramps and super heavy duty spray skirts specifically for offshore sailing.
Don't try this at home kids (lol, always wanted to say that)
FE
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