Should I get a Hobie 16?

I’m worried that if everyone is going to get 11 to 14 foot boards for stand-up paddle surfing this summer, I may never get another wave. Would a Hobie 16 be a good choice for me? Didn’t Phil Edwards design it? A used one is cheaper than a new standuppaddler and I could maybe get on a swell a quarter mile out. Bring a couple of friends along too.

Sorry.

I say go ahead and get one…tell your wife, GF, significant other I said it was OK…

…I’d like a hovercraft , myself…

i just tow in off the Goodyear blimp

a Hobie 16 is more known as a Catamaran.

also a Hobie 14 the same thing.

Ahmmmm - having dealt with one when it was new on the market and brandy-dandy new itself, plus several as repairs…

They go like hell when they go, no doubt about it. Draw very little water, and that trampoline is roomy enough for all sorts of things, including the significant other…

However, I think of them as a lot like the old Fiat 124 convertibles. Neat to look at when new, and they were capable of going real fast, turned pretty good when everything was tight.

But… they didn’t stay tight long. The sawed off chunks of extruded mast aluminum they used as stanchions ( legs) were just bedded in the foam hull and glassed around and they got loose pretty easy …and you ( or somebody paying me ) winds up reglassing around it again and again and again super thick, kinda like a glass-on fin on a board custom made for Godzilla.

They go like hell, true. But they break. A lot. And the parts are proprietary ( Hobie brand only for the most part ) and …well, the old cliche ’ the rigging costs more than the hull’ is very true. You start to become a yacht nazi, with all that spectra running rigging and kevlar sail fabric and all that lunacy…

And hey, if the waves are that small that you need a hemongo board that really should have running lights and a boat registration in addition to a kayak paddle…what in blazes are you doing surfing? The fin will drag on the bottom, scaring hell out of poor innocent shellfish that could be cooked up for supper rather than tormenting the poor things.

It’s kinda like being fifty, paunchy and single and trying to make time with barely legal chiquitas while wearing your best 1980s John Travolta Saturday Night Fever polyester getup ( no matter how much it’ll stretch) : it’s really not gonna work, you’ll look silly and whatever you do get you really don’t want.

Now, it’s for times like that that they invented the windsurfer. You can get lots of 'em at yard sales, often just take 'em away. Please. Take 'em away. Basements and garages all over have at least one and often several taking up space and getting dusty.

For times like that, I myself have a graphite/carbon 7-footer.

With ceramic guides, a Penn unskirted spinning reel and 12 lb monofilament line…and I usually use live bait. Grovelling in ripples just ain’t my thing.

doc…

the hobie 16

taken from the cold dead hands

of Vance the

beach litter patrol guard

after the massacre at the board

walk was still warm

the main sheet had a distinct wear spot

at the broad reach spot.

although the screaming anguish echoed to the top of the peir

the smile on the face of the dead man lingered in post mortem.

these are the times that try mens souls

ad hoc minister to the faithful

suceedent to gene the yodeler

spoke his peace at the imprompteau ceremony at the rivermouth

weeks after the ''accident"

‘‘this was no accident’’’

miles tangle shroud said in private interview

''as premeditated as the san Jose saftey club’s

distruction of the pinacle rock at he lane"

"“they always had it in for the old stone”

they called him the outside angler

bummed out at the crowdts at third reef

he vanguarded the ouside kelp channel pass

dredging to allow the 16 a wider birth.

"Vance Cupertino Smyth will be

remembered by the legions

that follow his phospher trails"

gene the yodeler was

sitting up in his grave

to hear what might

a poinient insight

" to go where no man had gone before"

wow

"but he shoulda just measured the space under the peir

just once. before trying to shoot the length.

sure the wind was right,but there was simply no room

for the mast and beam"

the sobbing of young women

in the crowd was audible

as the sun slowly set in that

june latitude casting that special angle shadow

from every remnant Iceplant branch on the cliff side.

the signs along the cat way channel approaching the peir

now clearly say,“no shooting the peir wit Hobie 16”

and in small print’by order of the greater santa cruz

hystical society of retired postal employees’

would there be a moral to this story it might read somthing like

'Tread not that yonder high line outside,lest you find out

the measurement you lack could be your undoing"

as far as the greedy punk ass bigger than yours

so’s I can burn you attitude,

rest assured the leg sockett

they sacrifice to the leash god

will not readily repairable be

and the convalescence

they spend will be out of the water.

and at the lane…no leash ?

12’er?

long swim with a paddle

…ambrose…

look dad no body out

lets stand up paddle from mitchels

to nat bridges and back

the wind should be ripping on the way back

aaaaaaa

hhhhooooeeddddaaaaaaaaddy

there is an empty line outside

and you dont need a sheet

or need to burn the gremmies in the sandbox