Well I think the real question is, how many of those other designs are actually being sold for a profit anywhere? Doesn't take a rocket surgeon to understand why they haven't been imported to the US before now...

It is unfortunate that the high performance market isn't large enough to interest Hobie Cat.

Mike

Mike

The only high performance niche that they don't have a boat for is the F16.... (None of the major builders bother with A class)

What would be the rational for building a boat that competes with your already successful racing class of Hobie 16 sloops in North America??? .... It's not like the F16 racing scene has exploded.

Perhaps the unified corporate structure will cut some costs out of the other boats (including the wildcat) and make them profitable in North America....

Mr. Miller,

I was looking at it from the "all fun for sailors" side, not the profit making side. I did express admiration for the Hobie marketing approach, and trust me, our local Hobie dealer has put a lot more food on the table with the yaks and recently, the sups, but there is not a Hobie Cat product that can compete with his stable of NACRAS.

When I was in France I saw some of the Euro boats. One guy in Entebbe was bragging about the one piece spinnaker halyard and tack system on one of their rentals. Randy had that on his NACRA 6.0 NA a couple years or more earlier, and if I remember correctly, on low batteries, the guy even said the design was Smyth's.

In our region of the USA, youth, yacht club (opti, 420, Laser etc) sailors are converting to the F 16 by high school. Let's consider the impact which the AC will have through 2013. The youth sailors coming out of yacht club sailing programs will be attracted to the high performance discipline and many of them already have Olympic lights on their Christmas tree.

here we go...Hobie has their eye on a completely different ball than Nacra, AHPC, Falcon, etc. Right, wrong, or different, it is an apples to oranges comparison of companies. Do we have to rehash all this again?

No, its just a bummer is all. Easily bigger than the others combined in gross revenue, just the least likely to cater to us.

if we weren't such cheap=azzes maybe they'd be interested

True, cat sailors are wicked cheap.

anyone know about the new Hobie 20 footer? I have been hearing rumours of it it for a while now..

I'll admit I'm cheep, cheep, cheap! My Hobie 16s were purchased used. And the only Hobie products I buy are those infernal rudder cams!!! --The more I think about it, they have made a fortune off me because of those rudder cams!!!!!!

Mark, Jay made my actual point.

Looking back at the past decade or more, all high performance R&D has come out of HCE, because the market is there for it. Hopefully the new regime continues to attract the buyers in Europe, so we can see more develoment and new designs. We obviously can't count on the US market to tell us what the rest of the world will buy.

Mike

Fyi... we have the sleeves in stock. F99301710 $29.99

They are 18" long. These came in with foam plugs glued in each end.

How can anyone say that when we pay over 20K for a new boat with no motor? 4K for a set of sails that will last only 2 years if you're careful?
That statement makes no ****ing sense at all.

Because most don't.

Amen Brotha. I was thinking the same thing.

Ya gotta look outside your (extremely) small group of friends. There are not that many spending big bucks on cats or we wouldn't be having his conversation. Look at the fleets that are active at any one time. Same guys move from fleet to fleet. It's not a big pool of buyers.

I'm not questioning your marketing, the race market is break even at best, suicide at worst. The comment was directed at Karl and Lee ,not the thread in general.
I was just saying the racers I know including myself are anything but cheap more like mugging victims and that is the circle I know.

F18 sailors spend money, there just aren't enough of them, and they are the biggest racing group behind Hobie 16s, who hate spending money.

Just my observations over the years...

Mike

And A cat guys spend the most. I have an F-18, A cat and a Hobie 16 so I'm doomed. Hard to keep up.

and what's the odds Hobie NA will sell more than fifty Hobie 16's in 2012? extremely small market indeed

People keep wanting them to be more performance oriented, but it's pretty obvious where the money comes from. SUPs and Kayaks are the moneymakers. I'd doubt that if they hadn't diversified into stuff besides cats, they'd still be solvent.