Centerboard

I too admire the AI as the ultimate crossover vehicle. There are times for pure sailing, times for pedal sailing, times for pedaling, and times for paddling. The drive pops in and out pretty quickly and easily straps right behind me.

But if you ever do want the best upwind sailing only performance, use the daggerboard. If you are pedaling, I can see why it wouldn't make that much difference.

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jzk

Hobie Adventure Island.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTIq7IhU84Y[/youtube]

What Chris said. Also I love the choice of sailing, peddling, or just leaving all the extras behind and going kayaking any time I wish. I have owned and sailed several classes of yachts including Lasers which were both thrilling and physically demanding on their day but all lacked the versalitity of the AI. Good one Mr. Hobie....Pirate

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Master of the galleon 'Pirates Lot'

OK, so I think we have a consensus on the Dagger board:

When sailing upwind:
- When the Mirage drive is in and being used, the Dagger board has little effect in light winds, but becomes more useful as the wind gets stronger
- When the Mirage drive is out, the Dagger board is needed to help the boat track at all wind speeds.
- At higher wind speeds, it can be retracted/rotated backward to lessen weather helm.

When sailing downwind:
- The Dagger board is not necessary to aid tracking and slows the boat somewhat due to the extra drag.

When sailing perpendicular to the wind:
- The Dagger board may lessen the tendency of the boat to heel in stronger winds and so lessen the tendency of the leeward ama to become submerged.

At all points of sail:
-The Dagger board improves steering by providing a fulcrum for the boat and may be useful for this purpose in difficult conditions, such as strong wind or waves.

If anyone wants to modify the above comments in any way, please do so. Then we could perhaps submit them to Matt for inclusion in the proposed sticky FAQ.

PS: I'm referring to it as a Dagger board, as there doesn't seem to be any name that exactly describes it and that is what it is called in the Hobie catalogue.

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Hi chaps great read this thread, but could somebody tell me in layman's terms, when I should install the ''dagger board''

Happy new year chaps, here's to 2010 and some great AI sailing.........

Roller

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Every day is an Adventure Island day

Roller, In laymans terms, I think the concensus is as per ChrisJ's first comment. If you generally sail with the drive in, insert the daggerboard when you start to think about furling the sail. If you are sailing with the drive out, you need the daggerboard in to stop any sideways slip. Chris's comment just above your's sums it all up to a tee. I now use this rule after being caught out the other week. ie: don't go out without it........viewtopic.php?f=70&t=18539

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Don't take life too seriously................it ain't permanent.

Great info on this thread guys! I'm mostly sailing in an estuary which has some very shallow parts with sandbars that you can be upon without much warning signs. I'm worried about damaging the turbo fins if I run into a bar hard ( sand that is!). Can I sail the AI without the Mirage Drive and put the cassette thingy in and just use the daggerboard? Will I lose much performance? Winds vary from light to 20-25 knots.
Cheers Plaxy

Yep! Just be sure the daggerboard is all the way down and it's bungee is through the plastic eye and hooked on the eyelet post like it's designed. That way, if you do hit the daggerboard on the bottom, it will rotate under the hull instead of doing damage.

Not much performance hit, unless you are trying to point real high into the wind. Then, you might lose a few degrees of sail.

Less than 6mph (10kph) I'd still probably remove it, and under 10mph (16kph) maybe unhook the bungee from the eyelet and rotate it up against the hull if worried about hitting bottom.

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Hobie Island Sailing since 2006

On our recent 70-mile AI camping trip, I basically had the drive out the whole trip (see the pictures). Here is the link:
http://www.hobiecat.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=7276&start=90

At one point I was teasing my sailing companion, Polecat (Bill Waller) that I was going to change my forum name to "No Pedal." Polecat pedals almost continously throughout the day. If I do that, I get cramps. Going on a broad reach or before the wind, you get almost no performance hit. When I am going before the wind, I even remove the dagger board. I did make the mistake of not bringing the Mirage cassette plug, so I had water surging up the well into the cockpit area on the winday days.

During that trip, we were either on a broad reach or running before the wind every day. I do use Kayaking Bob's simple outhaul method for getting better sail shape.

Keith

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2015 AI 2, 2014 Tandem

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex ... It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." A. Einstein

"Less is more" Anon

Plaxy, I do quite a bit of sailing in estuaries (Brisbane Water, Tuggerah Lake) and I have bent two turbo fin masts on sandbars. Both times, I was travelling at a fair clip and didn't really need to be pedalling. It can be a bit of a pain sailing without the Mirage drive if the wind is light or if you want to tack. If you just keep the fins up (pedals apart) when negotiating shallow areas, that will protect them. You can even "feather" the pedals to keep using them in shallow water. I've pretty well learned (the hard way) where the danger areas are in my waterways, but another trick which I've found is, I bring them up in Google Earth, where the shallow areas are quite visible, then I draw tracks around the shallow areas. Then I export the tracks to my GPS, so they show on the map.

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I copied reconlons mount, stays out of the way even when pedaling.

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Fair Skies, Max.