Hobie 16 or Wave or something else?

Posted by n_hawthorne@reddit | sailing | View on Reddit | 10 comments

I used to sail a lot when I was a kid with experience on Sunfish, Laser, and Penguin. I'm 62 now and thinking about getting a small sailboat. We live on a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay and we have a small beach. I kayak and SUP all the time.

Sailing a small boat again would be a blast. Most of the time I would sail alone, but my wife would occasionally tag along. The Hobie 16 sounds very cool, though it sounds like it can capsize pretty easily. Maybe a Hobie Wave would be a better choice? Or something else?

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alinerie@reddit

I had a Hobie 14 and a 16 when I was in my 30's. The 16 is tons of fun but it is wet and wild. I'm in my 70's now and picked up a used Swifty 12 monohull a few years back. It rows well, too, and I can have it rigged and sailing in a few minutes. It's easy to single-hand but big enough for two. Most of my Hobie 16 capsizes were when single-handed. I had a mast float that kept it from turning turtle but it's almost impossible to right solo. (My go to was flagging down a ski boat and getting them to throw me a rope to pull it back up)

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RandoBeachBro@reddit

I know this is a year old but if you capsize enough, flipping a 16 back up by yourself gets pretty easy. Having pre-tied knots helps a lot too for standing on the opposite pontoon. I used to race my friends around Jamaica bay in NYC and we’d flip all the time. Once even snapped a steel outrigger line venturing too far out into the ocean on a choppy day.

We would try to have them upright asap because inevitably someone would assume we were drowning and call 911 and within a few minutes very annoyed scuba, aviation and harbor police would be pulling up or flying overhead.

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alinerie@reddit

Most of my capsizes were in conditions that made righting the 16 challenging. It was a lot of fun when it was too windy for sane people to be sailing. We were on a smaller finger lake in upstate NY. It ran 6 miles or so N to S. The prevailing westerlies made for lots of long runs before having to tack but narrow enough that you and the boat could drift to shore without causing alarm.

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RedditLurker24601@reddit

I have sailed the wave a few times and loved it.
I recently purchased a '84 Oday Javelin, which isn't too hard to manage solo (I'm 61).

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AdmiralMaggie@reddit

I have a Wave that I enjoy sailing in Chesapeake as well. Easy to handle and light enough to single handedly launch off a floating dock. Great boat.

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Vast_Worldliness_328@reddit

I sailed a Wave the past 3 summers. Had great fun. Capsized once when I wasn’t paying attention. It was easy to right. The hulls are really robust, so it would be a good beach boat.

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BonafideLlama@reddit

I've got a 16 & my sister and her husband have a wave. The 16 was designed with speed first and foremost, meaning it's got a very large sail area for its size and will flip if you're not paying attention and a gust hits you. The wave, on the other hand, is a slower boat with no jib and no boom, which is better for less experienced sailors. Both are really fun just for different reasons

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