Hobie Pearl

One of "3 new catamarans by Hobie Cat Europe for 2009".
The new F18, as previously announced, all carbon FX One "Carbone FX", and this one...interesting

And the Carbone FX: http://www.hcana.hobieclass.com/site/hobie/hcana/downloads/2008/HOBIEFXCARBON_data_gb.pdf

Wonder what the weight will be.

The Pearl, another Hobie product to scratch one head over.

How is this boat different from say the Hobie Pacific or Hobie Tiger ?




Pray to God that it is less then 110 kg or else they'll look like right fools next to an all glass/vinylester/aluminium F16 for 2/3 of the cost.

Wouter

whew...that's a weird rendering.

Pearl isn't exactly a very aggressive sounding name to follow Tiger.

a new F18 project, to exist along side the current Hobie Tiger?? It will either die or else split the Tiger class.. Interesting One Design class going on there...

I hope that rendering is nothing like the real thing.

And then there is this:
�� Dacron main sail on boom with reaf points
�� Dacron roller jib
�� Roller genaker

That doesn't make any sense to me at all. The rendering looks very poor. I almost wonder if the Hobie site got hacked and put this up. Just doesn't make sense.

Mike Hill

Wow, don't I look like an idiot. Talk about betting on the wrong horse. The carbon FXone probably cost's another $7k over the one now, if not more.

I've got a 20 year old NACRA that looks just like that boat.

How could it not? The other bit on the HCE website said carbon beams, mast and hulls. That's alot of room to loose weight.


Another note: if HCE is getting into building a carbon boat I wonder if an A-cat is on the horizon?

Hobie eblast
Another "feature" is centerboards, not daggers. Certainly a head scratcher as to who they're targeting with this boat.

That Carbone is getting very close to an A. What ever happened to the Hobie A cat project?

I doubt it. The Acat market is too small, and too niche for Hobie.

It sounds like a Nacra 580

Does it come with black sails... Is it crewed by the dam*ed?

<img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Ahaa! The Hobie teams have been painting their sails black lately....

The Pearl isn't the F18 compliant boat is it? Just one of the 3 new models?

You don't think there is a market for a sporty recreational boat? Everyone should own a " Race Boat" or if not then a Getaway. What else is there. H-16?? I talk to people almost weekly that are looking for something inexpensive that will last like a lot of past Hobie's or Prindles or Nacra's.

Unless your trying to be the first to "A" mark what's wrong with centerboards. They work fairly well on the "T". One very nice feature... they kick up if you hit the bottom!

Just curious, how many of you actually take your boats out on a regular basis and rec sail them?? There is a market out there for this type of boat. If they can price it around what the average jet ski costs then they may have something.

I say let's hear more before going negative. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Well, the FX-on in glass/vinylester/alu is current 145 kg in ready to sail attire (singlehanded mode no spi; see Texel measurements). Comparing apples to apples this must be compared to a plain glass/vinylester/alu F16 without jib gear and spi gear = 110 kg - 2 kg - 5 kg = 103 kg. That means that the CARBONE first needs to loose 145 kg - 103 kg = 42 kg = 93 lbs before it can even be lighter then an old tech F16. That is a whole lot of weight to loose even for a all-carbon boat.

The real weightsavings are to be found in improved laminate techniques and quality control systems. With those the old tech FX-one can already get down to 125 kg at the absolute minimum, probably a little bit more. If they weren't using those techiques before then why should they suddenly do it now ? Makes no sense.

Carbon in the rudders and daggerboard is pretty old school already, we all have these in the F18, F16 and A-cat class for some years now. Using carbon cloth there instead of glass is not saving alot of weight at least not in the same measure as proper laminate techniques can achieve. I don't see them save more then 7.5 kg on mast either (based on measured data I have on Tiger masts and F16 carbon masts and adding some margin). I know they are not going to save more then 2.5 kg per beam either. Some maybe we have reduced the weight by 15 kg now, that still means 27 kg have to come out of the hulls; 13.5 kg per hull. Currently the FX-one hulls are above 35 kg a piece. Minus 13.5 kg puts them at 21.5 kg per hull if only they are achieve parity with a plain old tech F16. Currently the best F16 hulls are 22-23 kg per hull and we needed some proper laminate techniques to get that low. No, exchanging the glass matts for carbon matts is not going to make the CARBONE lighter then an old tech F16. They'll need more improvements, mostly in the area of laminate techniques to get to the optimal fibre to resin ratio. And they'll need to loose those heavy alu rudderstocks, that heavy Hobie snuffer and other things.

Another point of note is this. In Europe an FX-one in current build (145 kg old tech) costs 16.000 Euro's without a jib kit. Old tech F16's go for 14.000 or less when the cost for the jib kit is removed from the quote. The CARBONE is not going to be cheaper then the current FX-one due to the extensive use of carbon. A modern TOOL A-cat can be had overhere for 17.500 Euro's, so that CARBONE must take care not to inferiour in performance to an A-cat and be more expensive at the same time. Of course you'll get a fine MacT-shirt ehhh, Hobie T-shirt with that purchase but that's a 10 buck item.

I'll be very interested to see the final specs and quote for this CARBONE

Wouter

This is easy to answer. These people are best served with a Nacra 500 and at least you see them pop up everywhere. That Hobie MAX is also a better alternative if Hobie drops is price from the current 16.000 Euro. I mean if I can get a standard nacra 500 for 11.000 Euro, a standard Tiger for 15.000 and an standard F16 for 14.500 why on earth would you pay 16.000 Euro for a Bloody recreational MacMax, eeehh I mean a Hobie Max.

Hobie Max

I've sailed both the Hobie Pacific (skeg version of the Tiger) with MacDacron sails, ehh darn it, Hobie Dacron sails and the cheaper Nacra 500 with Pentex sails. The Hobie felt like a missisippi steamboat and the Nacra 500 felt like a nice recreational catamaran.

I think Hobie Europe is getting it completely wrong. Get a proper new F18 design out and keep the Tiger, redesign the hobie singlehander to make it real, improve the Hobie Max as the Hobie 16 replacement and as the recreational entry cat and stick to the rotomoulded Wave for the real novices. All other models must be terminated, they are not serving any viable section of the cat scene. And dump the silly names like Twixxy, Teddy, Catsy and Pearl. I kid you not, these are real Hobie cat names !




For racing get daggerboards, for recreational sailing get skegs. Centreboards are a bit of neither. They make the design almost as expensive as a daggerboards version and are only very slightly better upwind then skegs but make the boat weight more. You can still get leaking daggerboards wells and they can still jam up with sand and salt. Additionally, they still make traversing the surf more difficult then a hull with skegs.

The time of centreboards has passed.

They belong to a time where the quality of laminate work didn't really allow proper daggerboards. With carbon and better vacuum techniques this is a thing of the past. We might as well go back to wooden masts.

Wouter

Doing some 2008 fact checking (my info was getting dated and I grave accuracy)

Hobie Max (a boat I actually like alot in concept)

Standard version (Dacron, no spi or selfacker, pretty bare) : 12.380 Euro's
Race version (pentex, spi, selftacker, carbon rudders) : 17.390 Euro's


Hobie FX-one

Standard version (Polyester/glass/alu, only a mainsail) : 13.990 Euro's
Fully rigged version (polyester/glass/alu, selftacker+jib, spi+snuffer) : 17.470 Euro's


Hobie 16 :

Standard version : 10.700 Euro's
Youth version (=+spi) : 12.590 Euro's


Now a bit of a shocker :

Hobie Tiger :

Tiger STX (the race version but WITHOUT a spinnaker) : 16.780 Euro's
Tiger STX + spin and snuffer : 18.770 Euro's

The Tiger used to be alot cheaper in the past.


Now as interest to the F12's

Hobie Bravo : 4.032 Euro's


Anybody still want to buy a Hobie Fox at 20.500 Euro's ?


Hobie Pacific (Thre skeg version of the Tiger for recreational sailors/racers)

Standard (Hong Kong Dacron sails, no spi, no selftacker) : 14.440 Euro's
Nice version (+ spi and decent pentex sails) : 17.120 Euro's


And for the kids Hobie Dragoon :

Standard version (almost nothing there) : 6390 Euro's
Decent version for youth Euro's (spi, snuffer, selftacker, decent mainsail, Mast rotation control) : 8960 Euro's


And now for the competition


Nacra 500/nacra inter 17 /nacra infusion : was not able to track down the 2008 pricing.


Stealth F16 full carbon/pentex except beams and fully maxed out doublehander : 13.131 Euro
VWM Blade F16 vinylester/glass/alu/pentex fully maxed out doublehander : 14.500 Euro
AHPC Viper F16 similar to Blade specs : 14.750 Euro

Singlehanders of each is about 1000 to 1500 Euro's cheaper.

Formula 12's not available commerically yet although a project is setup that is going to produce ready-to-sail F12's. Currently homebuilding a F12 takes about 3000 Euro's and will give a boat of the same performance as a Hobie 14 but much lighter and more agile. Current version all come with small daggerboards and only a mainsail.


Wouter