I am trying to go out on my hobie 16 and the only tide that is even possible to me in the next two weeks, as i am a fulltime college student, is only 4.4ft i believe i can get about two hours of sailing out of it leave before comeback an hour or 90minutes later.
my question is at what height is it not even worth trying to go out?
bythe way where i am sailing is a large bay so the tide height is pretty much how deep the water will be plus a foot or two in the middle.
I would assume that as long as you dont have a very rocky bay, you should be fine in 4.4 ft. That is just an assumption though, and you never know, if this is anything like Rehoboth Bay, you may end up popping a rudder up now and then, but thats not that big of a deal, as long as you have good rudder cams! I honestly dont have much experience with shallow waters though aside from beaching and a small section of my lake i have to worry about, depth wise. But I guess that as long as the depth is deeper than the rudder length, you should be ok....just dont pitchpole, cause then your hulls will end up digging into the bottom and thats no fun.
I believe a Hobie 16 draws about 18" of water. Just be careful of those rudders!