hobie 20

I recently saw somewhere a brochure on a 20' hobie "Tornado??" It looked like an awesome boat. Unique hull shape. Anyone have any idea where to find information about it?

The Tornado is not a Hobie product. It's a one-design class built under license by a slew of folks (but not Hobie). It was used in Olympics till International Sailing got their heads stuck someplace dark.

A good place to start is here:
http://www.tornado.org/html/class.asp

Brian C

Mark,

The Hobie 20 and Prindle 19 are very much more durable versions of the Tornado without getting technical. The 20 and the 19 are no longer made, but are out there on the used market. The Tornado is a much more fragile version. The Hobie 20 is a very fun, powerful boat.

And don't forget... The Tornado beam is 10 ft.

You have to tilt it up at about a 40 degree angle to trailer it.

Brian C

I am sure that this was a Hobie product. It was in a Hobie brochure I saw on the net. Maybe it wasn't called a tornado but what I noticed about it was the unique design of the hulls. They were kind of knife shaped up front, had daggerboards and carried a spinaker too. What Am I thinking about?

Probably a Hobie Fox - a Hobie Europe Formula 20 boat. About 5 of them were used in southern California races in 2001 or so but the boat did not catch on and most people sailing them went to the Hobie Tiger.

so is the Hobie Fox available in America?

There was one Hobie Fox bouncing around on Ebay for a while a couple of years ago but I think it would be tough to find one if you were looking for it now. I think Hobie will say no, they won't import them but as with anything they would probably do it if you had lots and lots of money to spend.

Did it look something like this?

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Jeremy,

I found it. One of these days when I become a better sailor I will sell my 17 and buy a Fox.

Cool Mark!
There's one here in the Bay Area that I got to ride on a few times. It was one of the last boats that we sold at O'neills. The new owner scored it in 2005+or- for some crazy cheap price. As I recall, I almost bought it for all of the gear. It came with drysuits and all kinds of gear. Look for the deals!

The Fox has cool bows like the FX:

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That boat is so (censored) bad I can't stand it!!! Its wicked cool.
Jeremy, you going to the Dana Point thing?
BTW- I recently saw one for sale in New Orleans on one of the for sale sites, it was really nice, but I can't remember where I saw the ad.

Yep. And can someone in the know post a thread about this awesome event? Where's MB or someone in Fleet 4? Maybe it's already been posted and I missed it. Should maybe be a sticky.

We heard about it up here in Seattle and are planning for a road trip.

Hopefully we will be caravaning down. We built two more double stack trailers in the last two weekends. Hopefullly we will load them all up and make it to the event.

There should be a seperate thread about it.

Pump up the event.

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Mike Hensel
'86 Hobie 18, '93 Hobie 14, '80 Hobie 14(restso in progress)
Wind in your sails, water in your shoes, great day!

Jordon (my daughter) and I are coming to Doheney for sure. The most Awesome Gordo Bagley is chartering me a 16 and we're off. Its month after the 16s so hopefully 5 days straight on the boat will sharpen my skills a bit.
Its the 40th Anniversary Regatta (of the very 1st Hobie Regatta) down in Dana Point CA (just north of Oceanside about a 1/2 hour) and only minutes from Newport Beach to the south. My brother lives in Irvine and said some of us Div 7/14 guys can camp in his back yard for FREE!! I guess we gotta bring steaks and beer or something, but I'll settle up with him later.
Karl wants to come too, maybe he'll figure a way to get his Frog Boat down there.
cw