Anyone know what happened to the Super Fox? Is it still around?

Are you speaking of the Hobie Europe Fox. 20' spin boat?

Theres a nice pic of it ready to launch to the moon on Erez's gallery :P

yes

It is in the Worst designed catamaran hall of fame

forgive my ig'nance

but why was it a bad design? Sounds like it has all the go-fast characteristics.

The Fox is a beautiful craft. It can't run with the I-20 and thats what killed it. I owned a '04 Fox. My boat and several in Europe suffered the same failure, the daggers broke inside the well. Mine destroyed the port hull after breaking 3 boards. The carbon boards made the situation worse as the hull breaks before the dagger. I really enjoyed sailing the boat, handled great. But as a beach sailor primarily the Fox was a poor choice. There was talk of a full carbon Fox but it never made it into production as far as I know. Hobie even pulled the plug on using the Fox for the last, failed Worrell 1000. They knew it couldn't take the repeated landings without the possibility of failure, they just didn't bother to inform the rest of us.

The fox was configured to the F20 class rules in Europe. The I-20 has an oversized sail plan (it does not fit the F20 rule). The two boats were never on the same playing field.

As far as beaching... the hulls are clam shell like most all current high performance cats. You can not continue to beach and drag this type of boat without compromising the seam at some point.

Hobie Cat USA never committed to providing the Worrell 1000 with boats. The reverse bow would have been the biggest drawback to the design for beach landings.

I don't know about a super fox. I saw a rabid fox once, so I shot it. Now it is a dead fox. Later, bob the weather guy decided it that its death was just a fad. Now every spring he returns to the (Hobie) Alter to see if the fox rises out of the ground like Jesus. If it does, we will have to wait 6 more years for Hobie cat to get rid of the comp tip.
peace and Love,
Eric

They did compete alongside each other - under iF20 rules in Europe. The Fox was good in the right conditions but it still struggled against the i20s as a whole.
I think that the fox suffered the same fate as iF20 - lack of support from manufacturers.

That explains everything! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

What does "lack of support mean"?

No paid rock stars to give high profile events support?

No charter boats available at Continentals?

Failure to deliver product in a timely manner at discount?

No factory PR or give away crap for events and other marketing type stuff?

Its and interesting question... What should a factory do to support the boat?

When should the factory back out and let the boat owners organize the class?

What should support look like at that point? Throw a big party at continentals

Sorry... my reference was for within the USA. NACRA provided the I-20 here with a larger sailplan. That made US competition against the Fox as an F20 impossible.

Matt, do you what happend to the one off 10 foot wide version that was supposed to do Texel 2 years ago (I think). Is it still around? Is someone sailing it?

I'm sure that if F-20 competition were desired here either the I-20s could have produced a reduced sail plan for it or the Fox could have had an increased sail plan under a modified F-20 rule set.

if the Fox wasn't to be used for the Worrell why did Nigel Pitt buy one and begin training on it for that race, are you saying he wouldn't have known which boat was to be used. And apparently you never sailed a Fox because the inverted bow had no effect on landing the boat. The bows stayed high coming in and no wear was ever evident on mine in front of the crossbar. All the impact comes at the dagger well, wear as well. If mine had the orange indicator layer I may have caught it before it wore too far, but it didn't.

The one Fox I saw and sailed and raced against just couldnt compete with the I-20. The mast was replaced without a comp tip, the sail was recut by Smyth sails but the boat still did not even come close to the I-20. After all this was reported back to Hobie I am sure they decided not to put to much more money into it as far as promotion. I saw Brian Lambert sail it & not even brian could make it sail to speed. Everyone decided that the boat just was'nt thought out enough & left it sitting on the beach. Never saw another one.

check out this pic

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

Once again... the USA Version of the I-20 has a larger sail plan than the iF20 rule. The Fox was designed to compete under the iF20 rule in Europe. Can't sail them together boat for boat here.

Yes, I have sailed them and am very familiar with the reverse bow and its potential for pitching the boat in a surf landing. I witnessed Woody Cope do that on a Hobie 20 Miracle at St Joe Michigan years ago. The Fox can only be more likely to stick it. Honestly... that was one of my opinions as to why it would not be a good Worrell boat.

I can not tell you why Nigel would have been training on one though. We never committed any boats to the Worrell 1000. Although, Worrell was trying to get us to do it.