I have been sailing a mid 70's H16 for years and finally got tired of the slightly bent mast and a few other issues so I bought a newer used (1985) H16. My plan is to take the parts I want from each and combine them to get a better boat. One of the things I don't like about the 85 boat is the roller furling jib. So since my standing rigging on the 70's boat was fairly new I moved it all over to the '80's boat. By the way if anyone want to buy a complete roller furling setup for a H16, let me know. Anyway, here is my problem. Since moving the forestay and side stays to the new boat I can't step the mast. When I had the sidestays adjusted where they were on the old boat the forestay was several inches too short. When I extended them the forestay was long enough to attach to the wye but the mast was obviously raked way too far forward and the mast step pivot is jammed so I can't remove the pin. this leads me to belive that the fore stay is too short, but it worked fine on the old (1970's) boat. I measured the forestay at 16'10" eye to eye. Is that the right length? As I say it is only a couple of years old so it should be right (i.e.not stretched). Any other ideas? I know they shortened the forestay about 4-inches when they installed the roller furling on the 85 boat, that's why I moved all the standing rigging from the 70's boat to the 80's boat. That and I know the rigging from the 70's boat is only a couple of years old.

I had an 85 H16 and when I replaced the shrouds and forestay with new ones from my hobie dealer I could not step my mast either I had to replace the shroud chain plates with 10 hole instead of 7 and it gave me the slack to connect the forestay.
you could also just use 2 chain plates on the forestay. Good Luck!

The standard H16 lower forestay length has been 17'6" since 1995. That rakes the mast back pretty far compared to the '70s boats. The older ones were closer to 17'. The jib halyard block was also shorter. The furling jib was never a standard item on a H16. It was a kit with all the wires on the front different( upper fs to bridles).
I could make you a wire whatever length you'd like. Let me know if I can help.