A brace from the top of the wing to the crossbar would certainly stiffen up the wing, but it’s going to be a bit cumbersome and make installing/removi...

I suspect the original holes were almost certainly drilled with a tapered reamer to match the pin. If you have access to a tapered reamer, I would de...

The top skin of the deck is 1/8” thick max. The foam core is roughly 3/8” thick. Then the inner layer is only a few plies of glass, 1/16” thick or le...

If you have a second person to help you, you could use the “human link” method. Many of the Hobie 14 guys use this technique since the older versions...

The bungees will also keep the lower block from spinning around and getting tangled that way. On my H17 (same block/traveler arrangement as the 16)...

traphappy wrote: Just spoke by phone to the inventor of Tef-gel, the stuff that prevents corrosion between dissimilar metals. I asked him why sailboat...

No way to internally access the hull? Getting a glass patch on the inside is going to be a much more reliable and permanent solution than using stra...

Any particular reason the length needs to be held to 16’? The Hobie 18 has a pretty well deserved reputation for being one of the toughest beach cats...

West six-10 would be the ideal epoxy to use to bond the deck back on. It is pre-thickened and comes in a caulk gun style tube with a self-mixing nozz...

What kind of beach wheels? You can get innertubes for cat trax (the black inflatable atv style wheels). Rollez wheels (the smaller grey wheels) can ...

badfish wrote: I detach my wires entirely from the anchor points on the hulls and strap them along the length of the mast. sm This is a neat idea. ...

I would be careful about putting them inside any type of small tube. Bending the wires to too tight of a radius will weaken them. Kinking the wires n...

MN3 wrote: on several occasions I have shown up at the beach for sailing and seen more than 1 jib flappin in the wind - no one around - the little cle...

You can wait until just before you’re ready to launch (i.e. everyone is geared up, boat is loaded) before hoisting the jib. Or you can hoist the jib,...

Did you remove the trampoline or at least loosen the tramp lacings first? sm

It will only get worse (larger) the more it is stressed. A simple epoxy injection repair can be done in an afternoon. I would not put it off. sm

pairajacks wrote: The question is what happens when your mast bends far beyond the point where the sail flattens out. My unerstanding is that if the c...

I’m not terribly familiar with the NACRA 5.0, but my thought was that the spreader probably got hung up on the leech of the jib after a tack. If the ...

Something was definitely hung up with the mast. The mast was counter-rotated before the bang and then swung into proper rotation after the bang. Whet...

I think it would offer a lot of insight, actually. Of course if someone just says $90k, maybe that doesn’t tell you much. But something like $10k hot...

john_williams wrote: getting costs in line - the entry fee is the only thing the OA can control, and that's a very, very small part of the total camp...

Bottom gudgeon on the old style 18 castings gets mounted lower than on the new style. When doing the retrofit on an 18, the lower gudgeon had to be m...

The lower gudgeons would need to be relocated if using the old style 18 rudder system. sm

If the only thing that broke was the tube, then definitely better to swap a tube than re-drill a rudder. The rive holes in the replacement tube may n...

. smEdited by Dogboy on May 17, 2019 - 06:48 AM.

I’ve seen mods where people have drilled out the rivet that holds the roller into the old style upper casting. Then slot the hole in the casting and ...

Probably doesn’t matter much, but I’ve always seen them hung from the aft bale. This will help push the boom forward when you sheet in to force the m...

I would think if you’re willing to relocate/replace the gudgeons, you could probably make just about any rudder system work. However, with the gudgeo...

There have been countless small improvements and changes to the H16 over the past 33 years. Numerous different jib block systems. The most important...

Depending on the size of that bolt, the design you have there is really not much different from the Hobie 18 magnum/SX wing design. The support strut...