Questionable candidate would be strong wording; I mean, one of the top sailors on a 16 from Minnesota is the size of Bigfoot, and crushes everyone he sails against. Min weight be damned. If non weight sensitive boats were the criteria, the Cougar Catamaran would be an ideal choice then. Its a friggin tank, and doesnt give a crap how fat you are.
Let's get my position clear here; I'm a fan of the Hobie 16 and I firmly believe that the 16 is one of the most difficult boats to master and requires a high degree of skill to sail well. For that matter, I also believe that a championship held on Hobie Waves would be one of the most competitive and tightly contested events ever seen. I was all in favor of the Hobie 16 for 2009 so please don't pin me as someone anti-Hobie or anti-16. I'm just saying that you guys yourselves (the H16 rank and file) are strongly divided about the configuration of the boat and the mention of using it in this event has apparently fueled some international controversy. If I were still chairman, I would not want to be caught in the middle between Hobie USA and Hobie Europe with both trying to make some sort of statement to the other through my championship. The championship is about talented sailors sailing multihulls. The boat should make little difference in the scope of the event on it's own - the decision to use and in what configuration for the Hobie 16 is clearly causing a lot of problems (that I had no previous knowledge of until this thread). This is the point I was trying to make.
