New Member from New Hampshire and have never sailed a cat.

That sounds like fun. I have had my Snark like that once. I was on a lake with white caps and the boat was healing over so the gunwale was even with the waterline, water was coming over the bow , and the wind was so strong the mast had a noticeable curve in it. That was a lot of fun. I don't plan on getting rid of the snark anytime soon.

I am now the proud owner of my first Hobie 16. It is an '83. A big thanks to Jim Clarke-Dawe!! He came with me to look at it and checked it over for me. I was glad he came because I obviously had no Idea what I was looking at, but Jim has a ton of Hobie 16 knowledge. I know you can't see everything just by looking at it and some things may be discovered after setting it up and using it a few times but I feel confident, thanks to Jim, that I got a good boat.

Congratulations on your find!!! I see it came with an extra mast, and a crew!!! Lol!
Post some pics when you get her set up.

_________________
Marty
1984 H16 Yellow Nationals Redline, "Yellow Fever"
Lake Martin, 'Bama.

The crew wasn't part of the deal, I will have to pay him in ice cream or video games, but the seller had a parts boat that he bought when he bought that boat so I have 2 masts, 3 booms, and almost two of all the rigging. There is a box mounted on the front of the trailer that you can't see in the picture. All of the rigging and stuff is in there. I am going to lay it all out this weekend and see just what is there.

Jim came over today and we rigged up the boat. I forgot to take a picture with the sails up before we took the jib down so only the main sail in the pic.

Very nice looking boat! I love the Blue Hawaii sails with the blue hulls!!! Polish her up and she'll be so pretty! I'm a sucker for Blue Hawaii sails, such a great color for H16's!!!! Give that "crew guy" lots of ice cream and get to polishing! Lol.

_________________
Marty
1984 H16 Yellow Nationals Redline, "Yellow Fever"
Lake Martin, 'Bama.

This sounds great and looks like you got a lot of good advise. I bought a Hobie 18 last summer and my 12 year old daughter and I started racing almost right out of the gate. We joined the local fleet up here in Washington and they really helped out with advice until we took a second in Canada, now everything looks ok when I ask. Ha

This is a great sport and the people in the Hobie family are all awesome, so join a fleet or club and start racing!!

good luck

Well the title of this thread is no longer true. My son and I went out for our first sail today. It went better than I expected. We stepped the mast with no problem while the boat was on the trailer. Then launched the boat at the boat ramp and pulled it over to the beach. Raised the mainsail with no problem. Had a little problem with the jib because I had the wrong end tied to the head of the sail first, so had to bring it back down and do it again. When we left the beach I was surprised that we were actually moving because I could barely feel any wind. Once we got away from the beach a little the wind was stronger and we were off. It was a perfect day for learning because the wind was light yest we caught a couple of gusts that really got us moving. I had to let the sail out a couple of times when I felt the boat start to heal and got nervous. We aren't quite ready for that yet. We also successfully completed 2 tacks, we were proud of our selves. We did have a few failed tacks as well. We sailed around for about an hour or so then the winds started picking up so we headed in. De-rigged and packed the boat up with no issues. We both had a lot of fun.
A couple of questions. The Jib overlaps the mast quite a bit and the battens were hanging up a lot, except when we tacked with a good wind then the jib snapped over without a problem. Looking at my picture, is the jib set up right?
How much tension do I put on the jib? I noticed when I had a lot of tension on it and rotated the mast by hand when the main was sheeted in tight the top of the mast would flex aft quite a bit.
Another thing that happened was, we had a gust come up blowing in a different direction that made the boom switch sides quickly. As it was swinging across I had the tiller handle in my hand and sheet blocks hit it and I had to take quick action because it stopped the sail and the boat started getting pushed around. How do I avoid this or is it something I just have to watch out for?

Woops forgot picture.

Glad you and your son had a great maiden voyage. To answer the questions concerning the jib, yes the jib will overlap the mast a little and will brush against the mast when changing sides. You can trim the battens a bit shorter so that it doesn't hang up on the mast. When the jib is fully raised, this will cause the forestay to go slack, that is how it should be. There is an instructional video by Matt Miller on here and on you tube that has very useful information about setting up the Hobie 16. It's an old video but very informative nontheless. Hope that helps ya a bit.

_________________
Marty
1984 H16 Yellow Nationals Redline, "Yellow Fever"
Lake Martin, 'Bama.

Thanks, Marty. I have watched that video several times. When tensioning the jib, do you pull it just tight enough to get a little bit of slack in the forestay? I will watch that part of the video again.

Congratulations!!!

Sometimes you have to force the jib over. I did that several times today.

You've got three points holding up the mast. The two side shrouds are set so that you can get the appropriate rake to your mast. (I didn't set the rake other than roughly when we set up your boat.) Rake on your mast is important to the boat's handling, but involves some experimenting to see where you like it.

When the mast goes up, your son will be grabbing the easiest hole to stick the pin through. There's absolutely no right or wrong hole and the mast will end up at whatever angle it ends up at before you add the jib. It doesn't make any difference.

As you pull the jib tight, it will pull the top of the mast forward. If your side shrouds are the correct length for your desired rake, you'll pull on the jib until you take the slack out of your side shrouds. The looser your jib halyard, the more side to side play the top of your mast will have, but the greater the rake.

As you gain experience, you'll discover the sweet spot, which is different upwind than downwind and different when the wind speed changes. And yes, the mast flexes and bends.

It sounds like you had an accidental gybe. You don't want to be as dead downwind in a Hobie 16 as you were with your other boat.

July 1 and 2 will be fun days for Fleet 448 in Rhode Island. I'm planning on being there for the first. It would be a good chance to get some guidance on how your boat is doing in the water. A lot of the people who taught me will be there.

Jim Clark-Dawe

We may be going somewhere that weekend, but if we don't I would love to go. I really wanted to go to the learn to sail day, but we already had plans by the time I saw your post in another thread mentioning it. Probably right about the accidental gybe. I was having trouble reading the wind direction even with the wind vane.

Here's the link for Fleet 448's schedule -- http://www.fleet448.org/Schedule.htm

Lake sailing has a lot of wind shifts (and Sunday was a shifty day) which are more noticeable in a catamaran. I had several times where my wind indicator and my reaction to where the wind was coming from were in disagreement.

Jim