As we all wait for the new Hobie F18, I want to hear everyone's opinions on how to create a new and better cat design. If the Hobie designers turned to YOU for advice, what would you say?
With the introduction of the capricorn and the infusion, there has been quite a change in design philosophy from the older Inter F18 and the Tiger. While the Capriocorn took the whole wave piercing theory a step further, the infusion has loads of volume around the front beam, thus preventing it from stuffing it when the wind is up. What do YOU think is the way to go?
- Don't put one of those spindly wing mast bits of nonsense onto the new boat. I say this as a sailor...If I was selling the boats I'd be all for wing masts and the parts income they generate for dealers.
- A little more volume upfront (Infusion style) would make the boat a little less tricky to sail down wind in a breeze (a little harder to stuff).
- Make it sexy looking with some new feature to fool the gullible into thinking that this boat wins championships on its own (forget about those two primates pulling the strings and pushing the tiller).
- Other than that I'm not a naval architect and reckon the best thing the designers could do with my advice is to politely ignore it.
Chris.
