Hello everyone, I am a new sailor and my grandfather gave me a 1967 AMF Alcort Sunfish to learn to sail on. After getting confident with the boat my grandfather went back on eBay to find the hobie 14 i have in the title.
After getting the boat for a good bid of $100 we both had to figure out how exactly to put the thing together and actually sail it. Our first attempt was a complete failure with us just being tossed around in the waves without getting anywhere at all, we both quickly realized that we had butchered the rigging and returned the boat to the beach to give it another shot, referencing a book my grandpa gave me (hobie cat sailing) we got it right the second time and besides having some issues being thrown into irons and not being able to escape for several minutes we figured out a way to get out although in a less smooth fashion than I originally expected (we settled on still letting it take us backwards but we would throw the rudder in the opposite direction and once we got close enough would slowly straighten the rudder until we were underway). also we had to be careful with our placement on the boat because if we were both near the stern at the same time we would find our stern quickly disappearing under the waves.
Anyways a couple questions I have are 1: is this tiller original because whenever we come about I have to literally throw the tiller to the other side of the boat because if I don't it will be caught in the ropes, it is also far different from the sunfish tiller that swivels out depending on what you were doing.
2: Any tips on getting out of irons or sailing the thing in general would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for reading my ridiculously long post and happy sailing!
Oh btw here are some pictures
The boats
A better view of the tiller on the hobie
Closer view of the previous picture plus the rigging on the traveller.
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