Myabe I am understanding you the wrong way, but are you saying the Capricorns and the Infusions mast are the same extrusion used on the F16s? If so that is far from true. If not, then I misunderstood your statement and I apologize.

The superwing section, is I believe a lighter version of the mast used on the Cap in Inf.

The superwing mast section was designed and first extruded back in 1987 (yes over 20 years ago). And it was inpired by the alu wing masts that were introduced to the A-cats by Lalo Petrucci somewhere during the 80's. This superwing was fitted to the Taipan 4.9 which was launched in 1988.

The Taipan 5.7 followed later with a new larger section and the Capricorn mast was initially based on this Taipan 5.7 mast. Later (but before full launch) the capricorn mast was redesigned but it shared the main features of the Taipan 4.9 and 5.7 masts. The Capricorn initiated the introduction of wingmasts into the F18 class and the Nacra Infusion mast followed several years later. Again, it was redesigned but using the same key features nevertheless.

So basically the Superwing mast as used by the F16's was the first use of a wingmast outside of the A-cat class and it spawned a trend that is expanding to this day with the latest iterations being the Capricorn masts and the Infusion masts.

The A-cats are still using the wing mast design but are using carbon cloth to build them. Different material, but sharing the same basic features. And these features are significantly different from any mast Hobie cat has been using over the years with the exception of the new iCat mast, that is almost certainly a carbon wingmast much like the A's.

That is what I was trying to hint at in only a few sentences. And I tried to imply that the iCat will also be an improved design with the aluminium superwing mast at 2500 Euro less cost per boat. But of course it needs to adhere to F16 specs before Hobie can invoke the class deal for them.

Wouter

Well, at least we will have done everything in our power to make them understand. And if a positive response remains illusive then we'll welcome you guys warmly to the F16 class.

I mean part of the reason it was formed was that some sailors got really fed up with paying top prices for (sometimes outdated) products that really didn't fit the bill.

We thought a better mouse trap was possible and took the plunch in proving it instead of just complaining about it.

In fact, we too (the current F16 owners) took our money elsewhere after having surveyed the product lines of the big builders and still come up wanting.

Maybe we should all realize that the market share that was lost by the big boys to the F16 class (a bunch of shoe-string amateurs) is now running in excess of 3 million dollars ! Any marketing director that doesn't take this VERY seriously is failing in his job (and taking his company with it).

Therefore, I think the proof is now in (after overcoming gigantous odds not in our favour) and maybe a well worded "wake-up !/last warning" is warrented. It will at least be the honourable thing to do before leaving "the family".

Wouter

Interesting pitch to bring Hobie on board, it would seem a no brainer to me that Hobie should enter the F16 market as after all the Hobie 16's are now boat park antiques and Hobie has no natural sucessor even after all these years to compete with the Nacra boats which have a couple around 16feet. Also the F16 is a growing market which naturally fits in with the F18 market, big boys for the F18, light weight crews for the F16 all on the same handicap.It would matter little to Hobie financially if they sold a F16 or a F18, the profit margin would be similar.

But and here is the but, from a personal view, I'm not sure I want Hobie to come along and play for a number of reasons. Principally at the moment the F16's are a very social, fun, good times for all class. Go to an F18 event and it is very competative, with hired jocks fuelled up by " I must win to maintain my job " and a " its not my boat, I don't care attitude as I'll always be given another one".

Also if Hobie came along to play, would we see the huge development we are seeing in the boats at the moment by the small builders, after all Hobie has to maintain a design for a good few years as its clients would not be pleased to find the boats are continually needing upgrading to the latest trend to be at the top of the fleet. Mind you in looking at the existing F16 fleet which has huge variation in design and innovation, the good skippers still win. maybe the F16 box rule equals things out better than they first could have hoped for.

But like all things in sailing, if it means more bums out on the water then lets get the Hobie corp on side. That means every Hobie owner should get out there and hassle there nearest agent for when the Hobie F16 is going to be launched.

But just how much demand is there for F16? Are there any figures?
At my club there are only 1 or 2 F16s out of 500 cats.
There is also a lot of overlap between F16 and F18, and it seems to be only getting bigger
as I think we can all agree that the F16s are getting "fatter" with every design iteration.
When you see that 140kg teams can be very competitive on the F18 one has to ask the question.

IMHO the FX-One never took of as a serious (racing) class but not because there was anything wrong
with the product, but because the sailors couldnt be bothered to go to regattas.
This "doomed" the FX-One to a life of wednesday-night club racing with some clubs having as much as 5 or 10+ boats.

I tend to agree with you on this one Wayne. I think Hobie might have overlooked the virtues of the F16 market but they have been successfully producing and selling beach Cats for quite some time now. To my mind I don't think any of the three large manufacturers can afford to build F16's to a cost effective min weight. However, the Viper is starting to gain momentum in the US and AUS and some good results this year could prove very interesting. Maybe, just maybe, Hobie might have a change of heart and possibly NACRA might be interested if it's proven that approx 20kgs additional platform weight doesn't compromise performance and results.
However, having the big guns play in our pond is like a double edged sword as you say. We'll just have to see how things pan out. At the end of the day not many Cats can give the all round enjoyment of a F16 so I can't see me jumping ship for a long time.

Tony,

The number of boats sold in the F16 class is closing in on 200. For some reason the class is stuck in first gear in Holland (were we both sail) bu even then there were never more then 2 clubs that had more then 5 FX-one's. Namely, Muiderzand and Noordwijk. Of course we are going into our second Alter Cup event on F16's now. That means 11 charter boats that some company needs to finance and sell right afterwards. Last time all boats were sold in no-time at all (pre-sold). This time the expectation is no less impressive. If we are "a small class" with a very limted foot print then no builder could justify that. I think it is time to recognize that the F16 class is breaking through. Maybe not in NL but certainly in certainly in several other places over the world.

I also really don not think the F18's and F16's overlap that much. F16's always have a very large single handed contintient (about 50%) that the F18's will never have. The size of the hulls (fat) really is no factor as even the Taipan could be raced well up to 155 kg. We always had an overlap with the F18's in the way of 2-up crew weights even when initially many people thought the F16's were better suited to midgets. The latter has always been a misunderstanding that we have finally been able to kill.

Additinally, I don't think the F16 sailor were so hot on attending every regatta in the first years either. I don't see how we were favored against the FX-one in that respect. The Fx-one failed because not for a single reason in my opinion but because it was just not "it" for a series of reasons. And that is also the compliant about the iCat in this thread. Both may be very good boats techinically but they do not strike the right balance between a set of desires and market realities. Not like the F16's do.

And I think that is what the whole thread is about.


Wouter

I think I understand where you are coming from Tony and as a European Fleet there are very few of us who actively attend the bigger regattas to firmly promote the Class and excellent qualities of the boat. This in turn is having a detrimental effect on demand figures.
However, like most Cat Clubs out of the majority in your case of 500 Cats I'm sure that only a tiny percentage are less than 5yrs old and the vast majority are decaying Pringles, Inters/NACRA's & Tigers which rarely race and seldom travel. So to have two fairly new F16's is pretty good.
I'm not totally convinced about an average 140kg F18 team being very competitive in all conditions and aspects of racing but that's another debate;-). Also, as much as I liked the FX One the idea of attempting to right the boat post capsize was a real turn off. So in my case there was something wrong with the product.
Anyway, I will agree with you if we are not careful here in Europe we could be seen as the Wednesday night joy riders but as long as the numbers increase as they have been doing so for the past 6yrs and the camaraderie of the fleet still remains then I'm happy with this label.

And that is just because why the iCat is so interesting. It is basically the same as a full carbon F16 that hobie is now offering commerically. The modifications needed to be an F16 will not add any cost to the iCat. Indeed, if it were to use the Superwing mast, the cost will in fact be lowered by a significant amount.

So if Hobie can justify doing the iCat then there is absolutely no reason why it can't do a F16. (assuming the min iCat weight is indeed 220 lbs and not some 280 lbs)

Other then that, I think any class that becomes succesful worldwide must be prepared to take on the big boys. It is not like we can keep them out if they desire to enter.

Wouter

Yes I agree but there are statistics and statistics, they can be manipulated to your desire as any politician will agree.

Out of 500 cats how many are sailed more than 50 hours a year ? 50 hours is not a lot but to most boats in your boat park I would bet there would be less than say 50 - 75 boats. Certainly at my club where there are probably 50 - 60 cats the majority actually are sailed very infrequently for what ever reason.

Now if we look at my clubs active boats then the F16's have become probably the most used boats with one or two F18's, a few Darts, a couple of FX1's and a Tornado and if you then divided those by class then the F16's certainly would be the most active boats within a class.

Why then is it active, principally the single handed issue where most are sailed 1 up and the occassional girlfriend or rugrat comes on as crew.

In my opinion there is no crossover between the F18 and the F16's, different horses for different courses. The F18's are for the big boy crews and the F16's for the little boy and crew.

The FX1 failed at Datchet which had over a dozen at one stage for a very real reason, it was a compromise boat that sailed well with 2 light crew but failed abysmally with its other hat, that of a single handed boat being just too heavy and unrightable ( which I think has now been resolved with the use of a righting pole ). Sadly the final nails in the FX1's coffin was that the F16's are now on average faster, considerably cheaper and can be moved around on the beach single handed.

Didn't we have a shared event with the FX-one one time at Datchet ? The end result I remember was that the UK FX-one fleet quickly desintegrated afterwards and the UK F16 fleet grew.

Wouter

Correct but the FX1 fleet in truth had already began to sell their boats and buy F16's prior to the event.

A well sailed FX1 is just about on a par with a F16 but it would seem that we are getting faster as we sail and understand the boats more, where as the FX1's are not. I see no reason why the FX1 shouldn't really compete in the F16 class as perhaps a grandfathered boat, even though they technically are not class legal.

The F16 better be faster, it has a 5 point handicap difference .
(IMHO the F16 texel-rating of 101 is too steep anywayz).

Holy crap, how did this turn into bash the FXone class?

The FXone can be righted with a bag in lighter air singlehanded. Even at minimum weight. I weigh anywhere from right at minimum (157lbs) to 5 lbs over. Trust me I right it all the time. When the wind is up it can be righted with out the bag.


In the area I live there is one dominating class, and that is the H16. It may have better numbers, but in no way would I call it strong. There is just no other Hobie boats. A few H20's, a Tiger, some H14's, that's about it. I can't really say why the FXone didn't catch on. Its a great ride, a pig, but it dances very well for her weight. Like Mike said earlier in the thread, the build quality is excellent too. The biggest problem with the HCE boats in the U.S. is the price. I'd be very surprised if a H16 cost much more than an FXone or a Tiger to produce. The materials and labor can not be that different. Figure HCE has to make a profit, it has to be shipped, there's a tariff on it for being imported, HC U.S. has to make a profit, the dealers have to make a profit, and the exchange rate maybe better for us than it was last year, but the euro has almost always been higher than the USD. Thats five things that are raising the price! HC U.S. isn't interested in producing performance boats anymore, that's obvious. That's not a bad thing, except to those who live in a Hobie area. Gotta go where the money is, I totally understand that.

The FXone is faster than its portsmouth number, I know this for a fact. I'm a hack at the tiller and can get it to its number pretty easily.

Two reasons I would buy a iCat over other manufactures, depsite the inflated price.
1. I can still play in the Hobie sandbox. Their regatta's are still the closest for me.
2. Build quality/design.

Heck, I might go to an A-cat. I'm the right weight, and I'm tall, it'd be a good fit. I love running the spinnaker, but I do crash alot because of it.

We're not bashing the FX1 at all, they are a great boat for two light weight crew, yes they sail well under their handicap ( there were rumours that the mast measurement was not included in the sail area )and they are built extremely well.

Never the less as far as the F16's go, there are now better more suited boats in my opinion

I kind of agree here.

I would not question the FX1 but more Hobies reasoning behind making a hopped up version of a boat that was not overy successfull in the first iteration. Maybe they found a buyer group or maybe it is just a last attempt to use the molds they already have in their factory.

I think the FX compares very well with the early F16 - The latest iterations have progressed to surpass it IMO.

Hobie Europe builds a very good product. The beach cat sailors are totaly spoiled when it comes to what boats cost to them when you compare what you get relative to other classes of boats or even other sports.

Manufacturing in low volume composites is expensive. No builder is going to purposely over charge for anything and stay in bussiness. They do however have to cover what it cost to get these boats made. There were some post bitching on the cost for the new Wild Cat. Hobie has a name designer and a team of manufacturing people and a team of sailors who have all been working for over a year if not years on getting this boat delivered. Add in the costs for molds and I am sure some new components and they have to recover a lot of costs. Of course you want the newest sail cuts and materials along with carbo blocks and all high tech lines.

Hell a new H16 is comming up on 11K. There is no harware to speak of on one and the molds and tooling have been long ago paid for. If it was a situation where the company was "overcharging" for this boat, Hobie US would still be making them as there would be profit in them.

I can see where buyers want to get the most bang for thier buck, but I see where ther bigger players would not want to get involved in a class that does not already have momentum as the costs benefit to the builder will never be justified.

The A class is a great example. Performance tried to play and lost their butt. This is a sucessfull class but has always been driven by the backyard devlopers. Bim is sort of the exception, but most of the new ideas and trials are all from guys doing it for their own enjoyment and at their own cost. (Curved boards, and Bens wing sail be 2 of the most publicized recent examples) Successfull ideas get copied and the other die out. The expectation though is the very highest and no production builder with overhead can live off of the slim margin these types of product make at the end of the day.

The F16 seems to be following the A model. With more and more expectations being requested by the users, you can see why Hobie and performance are not jumping in, but trying, at least what to me seems deserate, measures to sell their already completed designs F17 and FX against the F16.

Karl,

You really have got to arrange for a ride on a F16 or A-cat.

You'll notice the difference in design when compared to the FX-one immediately.

I don't think anyone is saying the FX-one is bad, but rather that the F16's and A's are noticeably better.


Fair winds,

Wouter

After all that talk about the FX-1 let us come back to the ICat.
On all pictures I know, it has only a main, but no spi. Is there one to come later? Also, it is interesting that the mast is just 8.5m, does it mean that they might offer a alu mast sometimes later?
Personally I think that the aspect ratio of the sail is too low, and without spi a downwind leg might be challenging. At all it seems not be racer.

Cheers,

Klaus

There was a picture somewhere that showed it with a spinnaker on it, but it also showed it with the rear beam raised up. Probably a prototype/early variation, so who the frick knows? They definetly aren't just re-using molds, there is a difference in shape that is obvious when you compare pics from the same angle. The FXone is dragging around another 100lbs, so that comes into play going downwind with out the chute, and its a turd with out the spinnaker up.


Wouter- I get it man! People seem to have the idea that the FXone is a bad design, or doesn't sail well and that just isn't the case. Honestly just looking at hull shapes compared to the Falcon, (which I did see in person a couple of weeks ago), the FXone still has a better shape to it, but that is from the eyes of a casual observer/potential buyer/admittedly biased opinion. She's got a fat butt in comparison, and weight does mean a hell of alot in this sport, especially when its in the realm of 35%