Well, I'm almost done. All this talk about keep-out lines and stronger brace pins should be clarified. Stronger brace pins help to
PREVENT brace pin breaks, especially in open water. Proper keep-out lines
prevent a capsize if a brace pin fails, again, in rough waters. One (the stronger brace pin) is preventive, the other (keep-out lines) is a safety measure after a brace pin breaks. Two very different safety measures.
Fusioneng encouraging people for a couple years to install keep-out lines, but it was not until my capsize of my new 2015 AI 2 with much loss of gear and personal items, that the "keep-out line" safety mod took hold.
At the start of the 2015 south Florida camping season, Tom Lackner (aka BidGood, Flaneur) proposed replacing the stock Hobie brace shear pin with a Nylatron pin. I posted about it on this page:
http://www.hobiecat.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=7276&start=780 At that time, Nylatron pins cost $4.00. Currently, they are over $9/ea. That is ridiculous, especially when you can obtain a 1/4" x 20 nylon bolt at your local Ace Hardware for 50 cents each. These 1/4" nylon bolts should be good replacements for the Hobie stock shear pin. I posted about this bolt towards the bottom of the page here:
http://www.hobiecat.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=7276&start=930As there are increasing reports of shear-pin breaks in open water, it makes sense to replace the stock Hobie shear pin with a stronger 6/6 nylon bolt. I can still remember my Grandmother's admonition: "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Yes, keep-out lines are important, but I like preventing the problem in the first place.
Finally, anyone who thinks righting an AI/TI in rough waters is easy, needs to get out in the real world and do it. In my 2015 capsize write-up, I referred to it as "routine," but I would never act like it was easy. It depends on (1) conditions--how rough and cold are the seas, (2) your physical condition--perhaps the most important, (3) passengers on board--no one should ever lose contact with the capsized boat, you will never get back to it in rough seas, and (4) how much gear are you trying to recover during and after the capsize. For the WaterTribe Everglades Challenge, entrants must declare that they can right and recover their capsized boat. Can you?
Hopefully, I am truly done now.
Keith