Best Way to Strap Hobie 16 onto Trailer?

I picked up a H16 recently. tie downs strapped over the hulls are used to hold the boat on to trailer. Is there a better way to do it?

I prefer tiedowns to each pylon post. Less pressure of the outboard hull lips. Cross hull straps seem to need a lot more tension to get the needed hold-down presssure.

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

This came up in my resto thread too... any pics available of a setup like that?

OK, here's my system. These photos are from my 14 and 17, but I use the same system on my 16 and also used it on my Tiger.

Here you can see the strap (part #1793 in the Hobie Catalog) and the tiedown (green) as they are for trailering.

This is the tie down - it's just a 2 foot long piece of 1/4" dacron double braid with an eye splice in each end. (Splicing is really easy to do - I did 16 of these sitting in front of the TV watching football one weekend.) The original piece of line was about 4 ft long before the splices were done.

On the 14 and 16, the tiedown loops over the top of the pylon and around the sidebar (look closely in the first photo). On the 17, the eye strap keeps the tiedown from sliding towards the middle of the trampoline.

The strap kit as it comes from Hobie includes plates that get bolted on to the pylon bolts, or pop-riveted to the deck flange on the 17 and 18. You're supposed to hook the ends of the straps into those. I went with a universal system for all my boats that requires no modification of the boat to work.

What you really can't see in the photos is that the rear straps angle forward and the front straps angle aft. The boat can't move backwards, forwards, up or down. In fact, the air resistance of driving down the road actually makes the boat plant itself even better on the trailer.

The only problems I've had with these straps are flutter and when they get wet, they stretch. You just have to keep an eye on them in the rain and tighten as necessary. If they start to flutter, just put a twist in them.

Thanks so much I have an 85 H16 the guy strap to hulls and has several cracks from it. But I just purchased an 82 H16 that is in awesome condition and was wondering how to strap it down without messing it up as this ones a keeper!

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Floyd
00 Tiger
http://www.HobieFleet33.com
10 Mile Surfside, Texas
Join us on our Facebook group: Surfside Sailing

Awesome, I like it, will have to order the parts when I get around to cleaning up my trailer later this year!

You don't need to use the parts I have here.

You can do the same thing with four pieces of line about 10' long. Use trucker's hitches to get them tight.

The concepts are:
- They don't touch the hulls
- They provice a 4-point tie down that keeps the boat from moving in any direction

I use a very similar system with cam straps. The aft straps angle forward and toward the centerline and the forward straps angle aft and toward the centerline. I trailer about 30 miles a couple of times a week and do over 100 miles a couple a times a year . Never had any problems until this last week. Coming back from Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake, the wind was kicking up with gusts over 40mph and I was traveling 50mph at 90 degrees to the wind. I was lucky to be watching in my mirror as my boat lifted slightly and shifted over to the leeward enough to come off the front rollers. My back ones have guides, but my front ones are just v shaped rollers. Anyway, I stopped before any serious damage was done and used a racheting strap on the windward hull. Worked fine and I immediately took it off when I reached home. Scared the living daylights out of me though. I will definitely be watching for those side winds in the future.

I did this on Saturday morning and it worked great, on the trailer I used 4 mounting brackets that had rings from northern tools ($2 each) and then used motorcycle straps they wrap around the tramp frame perfect hooked the other end to the ring and pull snug. Drove 60 miles boat did'nt move at all. Thanks for the pics!

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Floyd
00 Tiger
http://www.HobieFleet33.com
10 Mile Surfside, Texas
Join us on our Facebook group: Surfside Sailing

Anyone have any pictures of how far forward the hobie is supposed to sit when its on the trailer?

It's different for every trailer. Boat position on the trailer determines the tongue weight. You want the tongue weight to be about 10% of the load.

Same idea as the Matts, I am running all 4 corners inward. I even put retractable straps on the rear.

Front straps are fixed length so I hook them on, shove the boat forward on the trailer to take up the slack, then tighten up the rear to push the boat further forward. Quick, simple, and I know the boat is always in the same spot every time.

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Zach

Possible to post the associated images as they are no longer available?

I'll second that. This is still very relevant info. Especially for us newbies. My H14 has been strapped by the hulls by the PO and that's how I thought it was supposed to be done until I stumbled into this thread.

Don't have pix but will attempt to describe. You make up four pieces of line with with loops in each end. The loops should be a few inches in diameter (big enough for the other loop to pass through), and the lines should be ~18 " long overall when finished. The lines are draped over the tramp frame at each corner (casting/sidebar intersection). Then you run the inboard loop through the outboard loop, attach short ratchet strap to inboard loop and trailer, and snug them up. (If you run the outboard loop through the inboard one, the hardware of the ratchet strap may end up too close to the hull and potentially cause damage.) Also, as Matt stated, it's best to have the forward straps angled toward the rear and vice-versa so the boat can't slide fore/aft while braking/accelerating.

I actually use a dumbed down version of Matt's system. I have the two looped lines with short ratchet straps on the front, but my loops are just bowlines....not spliced. On the rear I just use one long ratchet strap over the top of the tramp frame attached to the rear trailer crossbar at each end. Works just fine.

It's not really complicated.....the idea is to avoid any pressure directly on the decks and keep metal parts from rubbing/banging the hulls. If you use bowlines instead of splices you can tweak the loop sizes and line lengths until you get something you're happy with for your particular rig.

Hope this helps a little.

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Jerome Vaughan
Hobie 16