While loading my 14 Turbo the other day I was approached by a guy who said he had something I might be interested in. He said he had a Hobie 16 that he was selling for a friend of his for $600 and wanted to know if I was interested. He went on to tell me it has two complete sets of sails and was on a good trailer. Yes, I was a bit wary and figured it was going to be an ancient 16 in really poor shape. As it turned out the boat looks great, tramp needs hiking straps sewn back on and also needs a hiking stick but other then that I couldn't find any faults with the boat. From the serial number on the hull it's an 85. I need to know if that year boat had any major design flaws, etc etc. I'm thinking worse comes to worse I ebay the extra sails and sell the boat minus trailer after I complete my Condor that's in my back yard. Any and all input is welcome. Thanks for you input.
Check for soft spots on the hulls. If so, there is water in the fibreglass and there will be a lot of work that needs to be done.
Hard to go wrong for 600 bucks, as long as it floats.
I figure sail it for one or two seasons max then sell it and get my money out of it plus. I wasn't expecting much and if you seen the guy that has it you'd know why. It doesn't appear that the boat was used very much. The only flaws I could find were where one batten went through the luff cap and a slight bit of damage done to the lip on the port hull and I do mean slight. The trailer is rust free.
Update on the Hobie 16. It turned out my memory is fading a bit in my age because it's not a mid 80's but actually an 82. Also I found it doesn't have 2 sets of sails but actually 2 1/2. It has the original sails that are still in excellent shape, the other main (it's black and pink though) with the holes in the luff, the black and pink jib and 1 very slight used black and pink main. Did the 82 rudders have camber adjustments on them or did somebody swap on newer rudder arms on this one?