2015 AI review

Interesting Yackass. Have had a similar experience with a big hookup and lost setup/rodholder being yanked clean, but my culprit wasn't a fish, a boat flying around the corner at high speeds hooked my line in the motor and before I knew it, it was at the bottom of the ocean, snapped the leash clean. Was using someone else setup, so had the drag set way to high. On my Avets, would never happen, drag would give.
Luckily I was able to get the guy to stop, untangle the line and hand it to me, with apologies of course, so I was able to pull the setup back up off the ocean floor. Sucks to lose and break equipment. I always say, a successful trip is one with no losses of equipment or life.

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Mark
Tandem Island- 2013
2 - Sports - 2014

Yep, I very nearly lost a rod holder in the exact same manner (possibly even to the same kind of fish - it happened in Shark Bay, where I have hooked a mako in the past) so I knew this was possible. Its also why I designed my bullhorn rod holder system for the earlier AI. The same system can't be fit into the new AI in the same way, so I took a different approach. My plan was to secure it before heading north again, but didn't think the fish down south would be big or strong enough to do it. You know what they say about assumption.

Anyway, after this occurred me and the boys from the shop put our heads together to build a foolproof secure system to prevent this from happening. We arrived at 4 possible solutions. One was to make a brace for it, and we thought about using RAM parts for this, but ultimately decided too expensive and clunky. Another was to extend the built-in leash I created so that it attaches to the hull, but this was only going to prevent the rod from being lost, not preventing it from going backwards or being ripped off. We thought about a forestay type leash in an effort to keep it forward, but I have tried that years ago and didn't quite work out as planned.

Our actual fix works extremely well and is totally foolproof. It completely eliminates any potential to be pulled backwards, as well as having the rod holder ripped off. What we did was drill a hole through the RAM ball and the socket on the base of the rod holder. Then we put a locking pin through it. It provides adjustable movement on the left/right axis, but completely stops movement forward and backward, and it doesn't matter how hard you pull. And the locking pin secures the socket to the ball - cannot be ripped off. Its an inexpensive and very minimal solution. I'll take some photos and show here when I've done it. Will also show the heavy duty retractable leashing system I created and explain why I did it.

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Kayak Fishing Specialist: SLH
https://slhobie.com.au

Great review .. thanks for sharing

Factory toe in ?

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Alan W.

Papaya AI2 to replace my well worn V1
TheTwins - His/Hers 2007 Papaya Hobie Adventure Island's (v1.00.01)
.. and a Hobie Outback SUV

No, massively foreshortened image like in your post makes the angles look worse. Stretch out the image so the length vs beam are as per real measurements, and you will see that the convergent angle is greatly reduced.

As an aside, I would have thought it makes sense for the amas to be pointing slightly inwards, to assist with going to windward (remembering that the windward one would usually be in the air).

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Tony Stott
2012 Tandem Island "SIC EM" with Hobie spinnaker

The original image I worked with was straight from Yakass's review posting (linked below) and center lines were drawn on that image, then reduced - I thought I had kept the percentage of reduction for XY equal .. and then the lines further extended out to indicate the angles.

.. I'll repeat the demonstration making sure to keep XY proportional reduction identical - I also added a rectangle around it to demonstrate the angle divergence off 90* right





.. of course this isn't perfect being done with MS paint, but the convergent lines in the original image are evident and I originally did it just to see how much. As to engineering why's and how much was appropriate, Im sure Hobie studied it and did it to optimize stablility

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Alan W.

Papaya AI2 to replace my well worn V1
TheTwins - His/Hers 2007 Papaya Hobie Adventure Island's (v1.00.01)
.. and a Hobie Outback SUV

Well look at the AI as shown on the Hobie website. Doesn't look like there is much angle there at all.... Maybe the image you based it on was itself inaccurate.

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Tony Stott
2012 Tandem Island "SIC EM" with Hobie spinnaker

I would wager they are the same picture

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Alan W.

Papaya AI2 to replace my well worn V1
TheTwins - His/Hers 2007 Papaya Hobie Adventure Island's (v1.00.01)
.. and a Hobie Outback SUV