SOS! Very loose side shrouds...

Hi all,

I have the pins on either side shroud at the furthest down on the hardware and there is still A LOT of play. The line that goes down to the dolphion striker is in. Any help?

Many thanks in advance.

The rig is tensioned by the jib halyard. Hoist the jib and tension to remove slack in the shrouds. The "forestay" wire then goes slack as the jib luff wire takes on the entire load. The forestay has to be loose and not absorb any load to make the jib have a fine entry in the wind.

_________________
Matt Miller
Former - Director of Parts and Accessory Sales
Warranty and Technical Support
Hobie Cat USA
(Retired 11/7/2022)

Thanks...updates to come.

Do you by any chance have a new forestay and origional 1980ish shrowds?

If I remember right, the forestay was lengthened and shrowds were shortened awhile back to allow for more mast rake.

I don't know if this is your problem, but it might be.

Adam

Thanks all for the help! We still had tons of slack, so we bypassed the hardware and attached the forestay directly to the ringthat connectsthe two wires that comprise the dolphin striker, and the side shrouds have been adjusted to the lowest option. Perhaps this is a symptom of the problem Adam mentioned?

Either way, two guys with near ZERO experience were able to figure out how to put her together without killing one another in a moderatly paced 2.5 hour period. Next time, we will cut that timein half. Now, off for our first sail, and beach launch and landing...

Umm I'm confused. You have standing rigging attached to your dolphin striker?? If so you're way off.

Perhaps you could post a picture or two.

MISSION FAILED. More to come...

Me thinks he doesn't know what the dolphin striker is.

_________________
Alan
'86 H16, Sail #89057

This might help...

http://static.hobiecat.com/2010_archive/support/pdfs/H16_Manual.pdf

_________________
Matt Miller
Former - Director of Parts and Accessory Sales
Warranty and Technical Support
Hobie Cat USA
(Retired 11/7/2022)

After successfully assembling the boat (forestay to the dolphin striker, bypassing the hardware), we beach launched for the first time. To keep things simple we went with only the mainsail. I had reservations with launching, but it went smoothly and we zipped out about 30 yards with the wind.



Then came our trouble- we could not get the wind (over 14 kts) to catch the sail, perhaps it was because as soon as we would the rudders would swing and throw off our course. Seeing as two of us have sailing experience we never thought that this would be the problem and after trying many different methods we ended up having to swim her in, again- without issue. SO... we were able to do EVERYTHING but sail the damn thing. Does she look like her hulls are too deep in the water? the tiller felt very loose, not sure how they normally feel, but that might have been an issue too. Thoughts?



Clearly, we need help.

You need the jib to tension the rig and balance the boat. Throw the jib on there and it will be a different (usable) boat. You do need a little help (with the boat of course ).

I don't know any other Hobie sailors in Malibu or I'd hook you up. There is a regatta in Long Beach this weekend if you would make the trek I could hook you up with some guys there.

The good thing is that in about a month hundreds of the top Hobie sailors in the nation (World?) will be down in SoCal for the 40th Anniversary in Dana Point. I would be happy to schedule some time to give you a few pointers on rigging.

You're almost there though!

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Sail Revolution
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That was my thought as well regarding the jib, one of our guys had sailed one with only the main before... perhaps it wasnt a Hobie 16. Is it not possible to sail with just the main then

I will be at the Dana Point Regatta, hopefully sailing in the b class division should we get some confidence to be safe for other competitors. Even if I dont compete, I will be down there to meet and learn from guys like you and take many pictures for everyone.

I can't quite tell from the photo where you're underway, but are your rudders locked? If your rudder cam has been locked when the rudder is up, you won't be able to get the rudders to correctly lock down.

Ditto

From the photos, it appears that the angle of the tiller extension etc is too high - so presumably the rudders have not locked.

Would seem that the main is not raised fully - has not engaged on the catch on the mast.

The rudders were locked in the down position after we pushed off. The tiller extension seemed normal to me in positioning, but very easily moved with minor chop.

So the two prevailing theories as to why our mission 1 failed are:
No jib.

Possible rudder issue (though I am inclined to think that the rudders were locked as we put them in place after launch).

Would either of these isues prevent us from catching wind?