foldable dagger boards

Cheaper? Yes
Lighter? No

You will never get a rotomolded polyethylene boat that matches the performance (stiffness to weight ratio) of a reinforced composite boat (i.e., fiberglass or carbon fiber). It just isn't going to happen. A quick search of the materials properties, Elastic Modulus for each material:

High density polyethylene: 0.8 GPA
Glass fiber reinforced plastic: 17 GPA
Carbon fiber reinforced plastic: 150 GPA

You can't get around those numbers (significantly). If you want a polyethylene boat to be as stiff as a glass boat, it is going to be a brick.

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I think the T2 is their first attempt at a rotomolded performance boat. It may show the limits of the material as much as anything.

While it's 7" shorter than a Hobie 16, it is 65 lbs heavier, and has only 188 sq. ft. of sail area vs. 218 for the Hobie 16. They did include dual trapezes and did away with heavy wings and built in iceboxes. But ...

It's not going to be faster than a Hobie 16, which is a 35 year old design, so I'm not sure real high performance is possible with this material.

we're getting a bit away from the HC18 centerboard-thingy slipping into T2 territory, but OK:

As said before, I sailed the T2 on three occasions this summer and I wouldn't have guessed the boat is made of polyethylene. I was sure (like in 100%, no doubt!) it's made of ABS. I have had the occasional bit of PE (plastic) in my hands as I have a decade of whitewater kayaking behind me, and PE is THE stuff every whitewater-kayak in the market is made from. I have felt, smelled, welded and burnt my share of PE and I had taken the hulls for ABS. Maybe also because PE (especially white PE) needs some decent UV-stabilizers to survive in the sun (else it gets brittle after only a few days outside), so white PE is and odd choice, but in the end he material is of no concern. Really! They got that right!

The T2 is a fun catamaran, fast enough for most and really easy-going. This may just be THE Hobie-way-of-life catamaran for today's customers.

+ small sails and 6:1 cunningham - no force required
+ hi-volume hulls - pitchpoling isn't a major concern anymore
+ cool, contemporary looks with the negative bow and all
+ no boom - easy tack and jibe without risk
+ rugged beach-cat

There's some downsides nevertheless:

- it's not challenging to sail. You squat on the tramp, reel-in the ropes and keep one eye on the leeward nose. End of story. There's no sport in it.
- no traveler for the jib. 90% of the time you will just pull it as tight as you can, and that's all there is about sailing the T2
- made for light- to mid-weight crews. Two adult men are a bit (?) too much.

It simply isn't THE catamaran for me. I honestly think that Hobie has never built anything better than the HC18. It's the perfect "do it all" catamaran, going quite fast, giving you a sporty edge when sailing with a friend and still easy enough to handle with your (grand-) children. I wouldn't buy a F18 boat; they're too much on the complicated side of things; and I wouldn't buy a T2 because ... just read above!

Now mmiller has already explained that there will not be a HC18 revival. The company once made 10 new sets of hulls and surprisingly enough they did not sell all that well (at the price of a complete catamaran - how comes?). But that's the one cat I would buy, when I upgrade to something newer: something between a T2 and a Wildcat / F18. Yes, I would (personally) love it to be a new HC18, but why not a T3? Two feet longer than a T2, a bigger tramp, and 5 m² more sail area - maybe even keep the existing mast, just add a way bigger jib, a jib traveler and some storage space in the hulls.

So why no Tiger / FX (or Tornado) for me? Because the come from the wrong end: they are racers gone obsolete; I want a beach-cat on steroids. Or let me put it that way: I don't want a race-car of yore without any comfort and a complicated engine - I want a luxury estate-car of today with a top-notch engine. Rather a 2017 Mercedes CLS than a 2005 Ferrari.

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information is not knowledge
Hobie 18 Formula, Hobie DuraGlide 10'10

Stefan - what are your thoughts on the Hobie Pearl (souped up H18)? the Hobie Max (between the H16 and H18, glass)? youre in Europe, whats the word on those boats over there? are they not selling well?

Point well taken, srm. I suppose I'm just looking for some sort of silver lining with Hobie's new direction, and trying to figure out how Hobie could get back to producing performance-oriented boats at near the same price range as the H16 & H18 originally sold for, ~$6-8k in today's dollars.


I'm not all that familiar with plastics, what are the practical differences between PE and ABS? Is one stiffer, stronger, harder, more durable, more UV resistant, etc. than the other?

I generally agree with you Stefan, I would be open to a larger version of the T2, but with a little more volume in the hulls, some of the tunability added back in, and considerably more sail area. I do love the option of a spinnaker kit. The problem I have is that nothing available on the market today really fills the role that H18 used to. The Getaway is probably about as close as Hobie has come, and maybe the T2 is close behind, but they're both still a big step down.


I'm also interested in how well the Hobie Cat Europe boats are received in Europe. For one thing, Europe has a greater overall interest level in sailing, but it's also an indication of the overall success of the boats and their respective designs among sailors in a somewhat similar market. I would note, however, that it sounds like the Hobie Pearl is much more of a modified Hobie Tiger than a souped up H18.

The Hobie Pearl sounds like a very good idea, and when I saw the spec-sheet, I thought "this is it", but I have yet to see one outside the online video platforms. Among the +/- 100 to 150 catamarans in the three clubs left and right of mine/ours, there is none.

The Hobie Max is a different story; it's the #1 school-catamaran here. The fleets are huge because schools/centers have at least 20 of them (or more) - and the boats seem to age well. None of them are new, but aged hulls and bad treatment ... they are die-hards.

My very personal impression (no scientific methods, no proof, pure estimation) of the numbers/ranking here on the "Côte d'Opale" and on the "Steinhuder Meer" (a lake in Germany where my brother has his 20' keel-boat) are

- Hobie 16
- Topcat
- Any other Hobie (especially Pacific and 18)
- Dart (90% Dart 18, very few Dart 16/Spark)
- Tornado (they are HUGE in Germany but few here on the coast)
- F18 (Nacra ahead of Hobie WildCat)
- Nacra (especially the old 5.0 and 5.2)
- Twincat
- A-Cat

check the webcam at my sailing club to see some variety http://letouquet.roundshot.com/basesud/ (mine is third from right ...)

Polyethylene and ABS are (very !) different materials. ABS is the stuff your computer-monitor and your keyboard are made of. A bit flexible, temperature-resistant, easy to get in form (liquid), easy to repair (acetone, epoxyd), very, very bad for the environment. Polyethylene is soft, flexible, cheap to produce (the molds are expensive, though), very resistant to scratches, and can be recycled to nearly 100%, The water-bucket in your tool-shed is made of PE.

Here two photos of the school-fleet at our neighbor's

_________________
information is not knowledge
Hobie 18 Formula, Hobie DuraGlide 10'10