Reacher

fyi... 85 at the beach and 75 degree water yesterday. I love So Cal late summer.

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

Matt, will the reacher be suitable for the shorter (pre 2015) AI mast?

Vetgam

_________________
Greg

2016 AI - Spinn & Jib

“Out of sight of land the sailor feels safe. It is the beach that worries him.”
– Charles G. Davis

I am told... Yes.

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

My previous post on this thread shows Jim C. launching his 2015 AI with a reacher sail. Also at that 2015 EC start in March, was a 2014 AI and a Tandem each fitted with a reacher sail. Since Hobie was handing these sails out, they apparently think or hope they will work on these boats.

Keith

_________________
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

Thanks Matt and Keith. I'm hoping I can buy an extra snuffing bag to use with a Jib. It might be a great way for someone to carry both a jib and reacher. Just snuff one, then attach the halyard to the other and deploy. Could make for a very fast headsail change.

I'll be surprised if Hobie doesn't sell a lot of these reachers. If so, maybe, just maybe jibs will follow. The islands just keep getting better!

Vetgam

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Greg

2016 AI - Spinn & Jib

“Out of sight of land the sailor feels safe. It is the beach that worries him.”
– Charles G. Davis

I have sold my 2011 TI, and ordered my 2016 TI. Looking forward to the new boat, new reacher, and for early spring and late fall in nebraska, The new dodgers. Also might be upgrading the motorcycle to tow the boat with.

Any update on the reacher, and the new dodgers?

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Crazy Joe
Captain of the LIC. Landlocked Island Club, Omaha Ne.

2016 Tandem Island on a Trailex Aluminum trailer being towed by a
Triumph Scrambler Motorcycle..

What? New Dodger? Wait! Tell me more...

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2012 Mango Tandem Island
and assortment of mods.

What?! New dodgers? Interesting I hadn't heard of those. Do tell...

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2015 Hobie Tandem Island Hibiscus
"Third Normal Form"

• Trampolines
• Hobie cover
• Davis Spar Fly
• Kayakbob's Sprayskirts
• Spine Board Hakas

Yes! Dodgers are coming back. Hopefully just after the new year. Red or Silver. Standard and Island Versions.

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

Good Stuff! Thanks for the update.

_________________
2012 Mango Tandem Island
and assortment of mods.

Fantasy reacher - I keep having these visions of what the reacher kit will include, so here is my imagination, partly derived from the photos Chekika provided from the EC Challenge (thanks Keith).

Reacher halyard/backstay. Continuous line with blocker at the top of its normal position limiting vertical lifting of reacher sail. Line passes through a pulley at each end of the masthead itting (which is free to enable the mast to rotate beneath it). backstay/halyard passes down through block at rear of hull, leading to a cleat(*) next to the crew. This enables the masthead to be held firmly from the rear of the hull.

Tackline from reacher Is attached to the bow fitting, with a floating pulley in the line, which leads forward again to another block, so that pulling aft on a line attached to the floating pulley brings the tack to the bow with 2to1 leverage.

That line is itself tied to the crossbar and then led forward to another floating pulley, so that when pulling the line from the cockpit, a further 2to1 leverage is gained (making 4to1 overall).
Tightening the tack line tensions the reacher sail, as well as firmly locating the masthead in a fore and aft direction. This line can also go to a cleat(*)


Reacher retrieve line. Ths is attached at about the top third of the sail, and then passing down through a loop in the sail, so that when the
(a) backstay/halyard
(b) tackline from reacher
are both released, pulling on the retrieve line will collapse the sail and bring it (bunched in thirds) into the retrrieve sock attached between the starboard amas. The sail can be redeployed by pulling on the backstay/halyard first, and then the tackline from reacher.

Sailing with the reacher deployed, the sheets look like they run to blocks on the outer end of the rear akas (but it is not clear from the photos). While it might have seemed logical to run the sheets back to the rear padeyes on the amas, the clew of the reacher is quite high cut, so there is no reason to lead the sheets so much aft.

* The cleats for the aft end of the halyard/backstay, and the tackline, can be conventional (ie line can be locked with figure 8 loop), while I am also guessing that there are cleats for the inner ends of the sheets which can be similar to those already in use for the furling line and mainsheets

I wonder how close my guess turns out to be.

Keen to get one? Me?

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Tony Stott
2012 Tandem Island "SIC EM" with Hobie spinnaker

I sat and talked with Jim at the EC for about half an hour, he showed me the screacher and opened and closed it a few times for me. Tony's discription is pretty accurate.
I explained to jim the only flaw in his mast topper was it wasn't long enough sticking out the back, and the rear stay line/halyard line will get caught up in his batton top keepers on his main sail if he tries to deploy both at the same time (speaking from experience this is a very dangerous condition, if the rear stay wraps around the batten end on the main both sails are stuck out (a pretty helpless situation). I strongly suggested to shorten his batton rod ends and possibly tape over them to prevent the rear stay line from getting tangled in them. I recommended until he gets that situation fixed, he not try to run both the main and the spinnaker at the same time.
It would be nice if they could extend the mast topper in the back about ten inches, but I suspect they won't because they already have the mold built for the existing design and it would be very expensive to change the mold (my observation of Hobie is they are a kind of funny bunch and don't listen to advise, but then again what do I know (lol)).

Personally I could care less, if they release the design as is I already have a work around figured out to make it work. I had the exact same problem on my first design 5 1/2 yrs ago, I had all my sails out in 20 mph wind (main and spin), the rear stay got tangled in the battons and I couldn't get either down. I ended up having to drop my anchor and had to cut and destroy the spin (almost lost a finger in the mayhem). It was one of those hard knock lessons (I've got a lot of those).

I also explained how I wish they had included a second pulley for a second halyard on the mast topper so a roto furling jib could also be ran. Personally I found the spinnaker only useful on downwind on long hauls so you end up not using it all that much. You pretty much have to have a jib for upwind. We found all this out trying to run down the Marqueesa (the biggest sailing cat in the keys I'm told) down in key west. My wife was friends with the captain and crew and wanted to go say hi. We spotted them heading south toward Sand key so she had me chase them down. We got caught up with them said hi then turned around to come back, it took us about 4 hrs of hard tacking to get back to key west. I learned another valuable hard knocks lesson that day, that lesson being your boat had better be just as capable upwind as it is downwind (just sayin).

The other major issue I explained to him especially on the TI the main mast on the TI is mounted pretty far forward. And there is not enough distance between the main and the front cleat.

The result is when pushing down wind really hard (with the spin and main) the bow tends to go completely underwater, and stays there (I call it nautilus mode, talk about a wet ride (lol)).

At first I added hydrofoils to my boat to prevent that diving, but later figured out by adding a 2ft bowsprit to the front of the boat tilts the foresails enough so they can create sufficient lift to raise the bow out of the water. I also discovered the hard way that the entire bow on a TI is not strong enough to support massive sails without folding at the hatch opening. It's a pretty good idea to re-enforce the bow with external bracing if your planning to add massive sails to a TI (just Saying).

Anyone who hasn't tried to blast thru 2-3 ft chop at 20 plus mph has no idea just how brutal the ride is, and watching the hull flex like a rubber toy does not give me a sensation of safety. I'm pretty sure the boat wasn't designed for such stuff. My opinion is if your thing is to go fast offshore get a different boat (like an H16, or better yet an F18 class cat).
Would I still get the Hobie spinnaker when it come out, pretty much yea in a heartbeat, but I wouldn't try to over do it, just use it in light conditions to improve downwind performance a little and leave it at that, using common sense. (and don't blast out offshore in a strong offshore 20 plus mph winds without the capability to get back (dumbest thing I ever did, and the longest 5 miles of my life)). The TI is a great SUV, but will never be an off shore go fast complex boat, as long as everyone understands this we are all good. Anymore I only go out in winds under 7 mph (what my boat is rigged to do).
Thats my story and I'm sticking to it
FE

C'mon Matt, don't be shy! Isn't there some news you can share with us regarding availability, contents and price of the reacher kit? I am assuming one size fits all. I have tried real hard above to guess what is coming... how's about a score out of 10 for accuracy?

Sorry if I seem to be obsessed... I have been prevented from using my TI all year (penicillin allergy/poor circulation due to diabetes/amputation of a couple of toes) so am suffering from Island "cabin fever", so imminent build of a haka, plus dreaming about the purchase of the reacher kit, are both keeping me sane (?")

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Tony Stott
2012 Tandem Island "SIC EM" with Hobie spinnaker

Bob, without wishing to cramp your style, surely all that is needed is to PARTIALLY furl the mainsail until the battern is wrapped rouind the mast. There should be no conflict with the masthead unit then.

Depending on wind direction, the main could be unfurled until a gybe is needed. A few wraps round the mast, and the main can then be unfurled again on the other gybe.

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Tony Stott
2012 Tandem Island "SIC EM" with Hobie spinnaker

Jim Czarnowski told me that the Reacher sail actually lifts the bow of the Island up, i.e., it does NOT drive the bow down.

Keith

_________________
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