It would be easier, cheaper and safer to find a Hobie 18 mast without a comp tip and use it. They are usually pretty cheap. The 17 or a 20 base casting will fit the 18 mast. You could shorten the mast or just use a halyard extension.

FYI,



for those who did not figure it out,...vicatman and I are sailing buddies,..on the same island..



we both went out on his new fx-1 last Sunday,...that is 460 crew pounds dry!.....after going around inside the reef a little we decided to go 'outside' and head for a local offshore island,....met up with Tom and his I-20,...and you guessed it,..a drag race was on.....none of us were on the wire(..string?) and the wind was 12-15 and the fx-1 lifted a hull and was dailing itself in.......I wondered how these hulls would do in the rollers,...well, we hit a series of 4 footers and she punched right thru with no loss of speed once,....the next set caught the crossbeams,slowed us down as 70% of the boat went airborn as both hulls hit the trough at the same time,...we pealed off and called it day (..the I-20 broke a rudder pintle on the same series of waves, we found out), to find that a custom 26 foot tri had joined the drag race too.



bottom line,...the fx-1 likes alot of water over its bows and it does not even blink at it........the complete opposite of my I-17 bows,...which if submerged alot upwind means you may be heading the wrong direction soon ( head over heals.)



vi catman ( virgin islands cat man) and I are sailing Weds at noon,....both boats out,.....and we have a cat race on Saturday,...will post more



Bruce



St. Croix

Sounds to me like if you really want a spinnaker rigged boat that you ought to be thinking about a different boat altoghether.



Whenever you're looking at remodeling anything, whether it's a house or a boat, at some point you have to step back from the situation and say to yourself, is it really worth it?



This is a question of expense, and your time. I don't think I'd add a spinnaker to any boat with a comptip, that's for sure. My boat had a spinnaker with the previous owner, and based on the two sets of tang holes in the comptip, there was some discussion that occured regarding where that tang should be mounted.



You will no doubt run into the same questions with your Hobie 17.



Don't do it!



Good luck,



Tim J.



P.S. If you do add the spinnaker, remember to NEVER let the tension off the mainsheet too much when you've got the spinnaker honked. The mainsheet acts as a back stay, and releasing it could break or seriously bend the mast.

Hi bobru (bruce) & vicatman (?)



I was wondering what sails you had up. I have an FX-One too (also?), and have been racing Wedneday eves around an island (about 6 miles rhumbline), with main & jib and very light skipper and crew (285 lbs total), and think the boat is fantastic to sail. This is my 5th new cat in 17 years and it's the best so far. It's usually blowing somewhere between 10 and 20 kts. with a 1 to 2 foot chop. It's great solo too (I leave the jib on, and furl upwind when it gets too heavy).

I'm personally anti-spinnaker - but that's another story - or is it? Too late, I'm rambling...(and maybe responding to MauganH17)

Not that I don't enjoy sailing with a spinnaker, I just think it slightly detriments the sport for the following reasons:

1. It adds complexity to the boat

2. It increases set-up/break-down time (Who has extra time these days?)

3. Newcomers to the sport see poles, wires, spaghetti everywhere and could be turned off to it.

4. Just how fast do you want to go? (OK bad argument).

5. I think it's a macho-testosterone thing. Even in the monohull fleet that I also race in, you are considered less of a man if you don't race in the spinnaker division. Shouldn't it be as pleasurable as you desire without being judged?

Done rambling...



I'd like to vacation in the V.I's soon - maybe we could hook up (no pun intended)



Steve

Well, seeing how I'm a broke-butt college student, even an $800 endevour is more appealing than a whole new boat. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to pickup an FX-one, or even an F-18ht, but I don't think my wallet would.



Fortunately, I graduate in december, and hopefully will land a job fairly soonafter. I'll be quickly in the market for a new ride I believe. I just want to be able to keep up with my 18SX buddy in the meantime

Tim,



The above sailing conditions described,...was upwind......



vicatman has a FOX also,....likes the simplicity of the Uni..



Bruce

Steve,



vicatman wants to start comparing notes with you,...hopefully he will see this and jump in.



Just so you know,...his fx-1 was ordered with a Euro mast,....the USVI is a territory,..so we can bend some trade laws here,......so his mast is one piece aluminum!



You do not want to come sail here,...for if you do,...you will quit your job, .....and stay..!





Bruce



St. Croix

The case for the H17...Although it is not the technological equal of the other boats mentioned the H17 does have something the others dont....Larger fleets.

Hey Steve we,,Bruce and i have just the main.reason being with the jib it goes back to being a 2 man boat and thats what I was getting away from,,,,I love the fact that I can go out anytime time,,its easy to handle alone and rig up.I didnt go with a chute because it would put into the spinnaker class with some olympic sailors no reason to do that and like you say the rigging up..then we leave our boats on the beach and only takes a few min to set up..come on down to the VI,,,,,we can go for a sail on my Fox......Harper

i hate to say it but here in the netherlands it occurs too me that i am the only one still racing with my h 17

actually the Fox is very well engineered...and much better use friendly as you put compaired to the I-20,,,the Fox riggs up much easier and has a much better downhaul and outhaul system,,The Fox had gotten a bad rap in the states because the fact the US I-20 has a bigger main and a carbon mast,,The Fox hull design is much better for ocean sailing..Mark Murry...drove in the Worrell this year was here for our regatta last feb and made the statemen that the Fox is a much better ocean boat than the I-20.....the Fx-One has much the same set up as the Fox..again the hull design is much better than the I-17 for ocean sailing...the narrow stems makes it easier to tack with just the main and cuts through the 2-4 ft rollers that we have here in the caribbean......so before you go making statement about the Fox or theFX-One you need to know what you are taking about......Harper Jones

2000 Fox

2002 FX-One

Yo VI man,



Do I hear a challange,...the I-17 vs the FX-1 in de Ocean mon,.......you are on!



Bruce



St. Croix



I-17 all the way....

Allow me to reply what I found : sailing the boats and when I was witnessing the 2001 Hobie Nationals from the safety/race committee boat.



During the 2001 nationals we had strong winds and really tough chop.



During that event the Fox sailor argued repeatly that the conditions were to harsh to sail in. We made them sail anyway as the Tiger and H16 sailors didn't think twice about sailing in those conditions. They were sailing in something like windforce 5 to 6 (Just below 25 knots)



A invited Tornado sailor indicated that he was unable to keep the boat flat in the chop. He used the word hobbiehorsing when decribing that the wave piercer hull took a long time to stop hobbie horsing after the conditions induced that. He did understand that that the wave piercer hullshape was intended to avoid that, however he found it to be more willing to do so than his Tornado. (one personal opinion)



What was clearly visable was that the hulls of the Foxes pierced the waves beautyfully ! However the mainbeams DIDN"T ! It resulted in very nice whale like fontains of spray and some curse words. The tigers, despite their non wave piercing hulls seemed to do better, especially considering their shorter hull length. Personally I must say that the Fox did drive well in Greece when I sailed that one in the afternoon strong winds, however the Tiger drove just as well in my opinion and I REALLY did sail that one in BIG winds and BIG Waves (no swell !). It was only off the wind where the ride became nerve racking. The Fox has ofcourse less tendency to dive but I think that is the result of it's longer hulls rather than because of it's wave piercer hull shape.



Why do I think That ? Because the FX-one is the worst of the lot when looking at dive tendency. That boat becomes scary when downwinding in a blow. I counteracted this problem by not trapezing when going of the wind. Now the boats wants to lift sooner or at the same time as dive and give me at least some warning of where I am with respect to diving.



In short In don't really agree with your claim That :"The Fox hull design is much better for ocean sailing". I've experienced or seen definate drawbacks of the wave piercer hulls as used in NON a-class boats.



However, I haven't sailed a I-20 yet so I can't really compare the two.



>>the Fx-One has much the same set up as the Fox..



But sails differently in my opinion non the less.. The Fox is much more relax and the FX-one will bite you. I would certainly not equate the two simply as a result of their similar appearence.





>>again the hull design is much better than the I-17 for ocean sailing..



I can tell you that you have more than the odd one disagreeing with you here. Funny thing was that I actually sailed the FX-one (and FX-two) quite a lot last june because in constract to last year the FX-one WAS NOT popular. Many sailors opted to sail something else leaving the FX-one on the beach. I raced it against Pacifics and Tigers for kicks and often we switched boats as the other crew wanted to test the Fx-two themselfs. I gave many a good run when sailing the FX-two. Often, the other crews DEMANDED to switch back within one or two test runs.



The I-17 sailors that came to the resort were not really impressed by the characteristic of the FX-one.



In the past; sailors like David Chamberlain, who also testsailed the FX-one came to comparable conclusions.



His post can be found at :



http://www.catsailor.com/forums/sho...;Limit=25&Old=allposts&Main=1945





>>.the narrow stems makes it easier to tack with just the main and cuts through the 2-4 ft rollers that we have here in the caribbean.





Well, I can only comment on the wave systems that I encountered or that I saw the Boats deal with when handled by somebody else.



With respect to tacking; I really don't expect that much difference between say boats like I-17 or the FX-one and both of them don't tack as well as skiffs for that matter.



>>so before you go making statement about the Fox or theFX-One you need to know what you are taking about......Harper Jones



However having said all this I agree with mr. Jones that I think to that the Fox is well engineered or that at least there is hardly any difference between the two boats (Fox - I-20) just make sure that the right block are fitted to the boat; DON'T opt for the pullyless jib blocks you will learn to hate those. But these could just be a sailing resort option.



However, I would advice against equating the FX-one with the Fox and conclude that the Fx-one is somehow better than the I-17. This does also extend to the same line of thinking when equating I-20's to I-17's. The hulls shapes of those two boats are also different in important area's; For example the bows of the I-17 are much different then those of the I-20 and I-18. Much finer entry and they increase reserved bouyance by going up rather than going wide and fat.



My main argument in this is that these singlehanders should be regarded as different boats and should be test sailed and evaluated accordingly. Believe me that is the only way to decide on the right boat for you.



Ofcourse, you should test sail all singlehanders and not just ythe FX-one or I-17 as you may find that these two might not exactly be the true benchmark for singlehanders at the present time :



I'm thinking about :



A class cats and F16's (okay granted that I'm a little biased towards the last)





Regards,



Wouter

first of all Hooter your comments werent asked for ,,,you never have any positive thing to say about any boat there has ever been built....you sail a Fox....probably not..never had a problem with the diving hull thing you talked about ,,,,and the FX-One works quite well for the water here in the caribbean so take your comments and shove em up your butt............

yo dude, chill out.



We're all friends here.

Hey, vicatman......we all only come here to talk about boats.....Please feel free to talk, and also please let other people have a chance to talk as well.



Alan

You really ought to back off. His comments were as asked for as yours. Whether you agree or disagree, at least he stuck to the topic. Yours was the personal post. I don't agree with everythin Wouter says, but you're way out of line. Congrat's on being the first to trash the new forum. Maybe soon you can make it just like the old one.

Michael Coffman

P.S. - The original topic was the FXone - I thought Wouter sailed one? Just curious.

Here is the proof :



(click on attachment)



For more pictures of me on the boats go to :



http://www.geocities.com/kustzeilen/Hobie_fx_one.html



Wouter

I've reread my post and I think it was very respect full of your comment despite the fact that I respectfuly disagree on some points.



So I don't understand your reaction.



And yes I did sail those boats and I did sail the Fx-one quite often too. Also I'm not alone in these comments. If you would look at the past posts on this forum made by others, than you will see that several people sailing the FX-one were stating much the same things.



I'm sure you will experience much of the things we described in the times to come.



But I'm trully happy for you that you are very pleased with your recent acquisition, I hope you have many pleasent sails with it.



Wouter

Flying Frog formerly known as Solo Man said he had ordered an Inter 17R in June after research and comments...



Any new boat takes a while to set up and dial in, but that was two months ago.



Waddya think? Let's have a boat report!