Hobie 17 Wing Frames Available

These are only the outer frame. No inner bar, castings, leg reinforcement wood or end caps.

They are only available for pickup at their Bristol Rhode Island factory. They are priced at $400 per side (About 10 sets left).

Contact ZIM directly: [email protected] (401) 237-6117

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

I have seemed to be the only person in the country looking for these, but I live on a lake in Colorado and it gets windy here. Windy enough that it picked up my entire 17 and the trailer it was strapped to and flipped them both on their side. The result was a folded over starboard side wing frame.

Of course the problem for me is that these are for sale pick-up only. I suspect I could get my brother who lives in Fairfield CT to head up there for me, but this doesn’t really solve the problem. Does anyone have ideas on reasonable ways to ship things like this? I do really want to keep my boat on the water and from here to there and back is days of driving each way.

Or, has someone closer to me parted out a 17 and they just happen to have a wing or two sitting around?

Finally, "leg reinforcement wood". Do these legs of these frames tend to bend and so do people reinforce them with wood on the inside of the leg tube? My frames don't have this.

Thanks,
Peter Raymond

I can only comment on the wing leg reinforcement question.

The reinforcement is a square length of wood, probably about 6-8 inches long inside the tube located right around where the tube would exit the hull (deck location). You can’t see it just by removing the cap on the bottom of the wing. There are plugs in the tube that need to be removed to access the wood piece.

The problem with the wood is that water will eventually work its way past the plugs and the wood will become saturated and eventually cause the aluminum wing tube to corrode from the inside out.

On my boat, I have removed the plugs and pulled out the piece of wood (not an easy task) and replaced the wood with a length of aluminum tube that is just slightly smaller than the ID of the main wing tube. I slid this sleeve into the tube and then held it in place with a rivet. I reinstalled the caps on the end of the wing but left the plugs out. Then I drilled and tapped a small countersunk hole in the caps on the ends of the wing tube and put a small screw in the cap. I leave the screw in when sailing, but if I notice any water collecting in the wing, I can take the screw out and drain it.

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