rotomolded...320lbs
Edited by coastrat on Dec 21, 2010 - 03:13 PM.
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bill harris
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new hobie 16 from europe
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Posted: Dec 21, 2010 - 05:11 PM
here is a prototype of a new hobie 16!
rotomolded...320lbs
Edited by coastrat on Dec 21, 2010 - 03:13 PM.
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bill harris
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Posted: Dec 21, 2010 - 08:14 PM
now if they would only come up with a rotomolded, boardless, squaretop.......Hobie 18!
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Posted: Dec 22, 2010 - 12:30 AM
sweet looking boat
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bill harris
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Posted: Dec 22, 2010 - 11:32 AM
It is a China knockoff, you can buy them in downtown
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Posted: Dec 22, 2010 - 11:59 AM
i wish it was a china knock off...it might be available and affordable! really intersested in its performance...is it as fast or not to similar glass boats? what does it cost? is rotomold the future? do animals talk? so many ?'s..
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bill harris
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Posted: Dec 22, 2010 - 01:02 PM
Wow! Looks like a really good hull shape. Finally they get rid of the stupid banana hull pitchpole machines! The weight sounds decent for a 16 footer too. I've been waiting for cat makers to jump on the rotomolded bandwagon and build a performance boat out of the stuff for a long time now.
Kind of what happened with the Canoe/Kayak universe. It used to be (even 10 years ago) that only fibreglass/kevlar/carbon fiber boats were worth owning if you were a serious Kayaker, now with improvements in the process and technology you can get a reasonably high end rotomolded boat. And the prices are roughly 1/4 to 1/2 that of a fibreglass boat. The benefit - cheaper, basically unbreakable, unstressfracturable and super durable. The disadvantage - small to large weight penalty (depending on the process used), hard to fix if you do break it, a little slower on the water due to surface roughness (can be mitigated with coatings).
Overall I think the largest pricepoint in Cats is likely the sub $10,000 recreational sailor who likes to fly the hull and go fast (hence the proliferation of the Hobie 16 as being the most popular cat in the world by far). It used to be that you would have to by a 10+ year old boat to meet that. If this machine comes in at just a little more than a Wave (say $1000-$2000) I could see hobie selling a lot of them!
D.
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Posted: Dec 22, 2010 - 03:43 PM
This new model is called the Hobie Tatoo and is being introduced at the Paris Boat show.
Pretty cool, if the rotomold process can make a stiff enough boat at 320 pounds it could be a winner. I understand that a lot of boats have to be produced from a rotomold for it to pay off because the making the molds is very expensive.
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Posted: Dec 23, 2010 - 06:19 AM
yeah, like aluminium extrusion masts, once you have the machinery, 100's of thousand$?, the materials are only probably less than a $100 dollars a hull
The introduction of roto-molded plastics has also enabled kayak designers to create many specific and specialist designs of kayaks for all forms of kayaking such as ocean kayaks made with a longer and sleeker hull to enable better straight ling tracking through open water. Roto-molded plastic White-water kayaks which are designed with a shorter overall length for greater manoeuvrability through ruff water. Plastic River kayaks which are designed for general use and therefore have a balance of specialist kayak characteristics. The process of rot molding involves a mold which is heated to the required temperature.
Once the required temperature is reached polypropylene plastic beads are added and the mold is enclosed and spun in order to distribute the polypropylene beads evenly around the mold. The kayak mold is then left to cool and the resultant kayak is removed from the mold for finishing buy the kayak maker. Polypropylene is an extremely durable and resilient material offering the kayaker both strong construction and light weight transport. Roto molded plastic kayaks have now largely taken over from fibreglass models as the number one kayak material. The first modern plastics kayaks were manufactured in the early 1970s when the technique was perfected for rotation molding of polypropylene kayaks.
The biggest cost by far for the manufacturer is the design and construction of a mold which must be made of a heat conductive material such as aluminium for this reason the price of plastic kayaks remains reasonably high although with a greater market share and more manufacturers the cost of plastic kayaks continues to drop. Polypropylene is an extremely durable and lasting material for this reason , plastic kayaks are very popular in the used kayaks market where very good deals can be found. Modern composite materials such as carbon and Kevlar are starting to grow in popularity however the relative cost of manufacture of these newer material kayaks still makes plastic kayaks a very popular choice amongst the kayaking
fraternity.
http://www.strikehook.com/forum/31-kayak-fishing/122775-how-plastic-kayaks-are-made
Edited by erice on Dec 23, 2010 - 04:26 AM. -
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Posted: Dec 23, 2010 - 09:54 AM
Wow thats pretty cool I really wonder if it could be the direction the Hobie 16 is headed could they phase out out the classic? I have mixed feelings about that for sure to this day the H16 is my favorite boat despite all the talk of pitchpolling to me its still one of the best designed boats ever made I sailed mine in the gulf every weekend in all kinds of conditions without ever pitchpolling and I never broke anything its a rock solid boat. A friend of mine bought the Getaway because he has a background in kayaking and he insist the rotomolds are rock solid and thinks it would hold up better to beaching then fiberglass hulls that would be a huge plus for Hobie how many times to you see questions posted about fiberglass repairs or bottom jobs from newbies ( me included) if no one needs help with glass work the beachcats traffic may slow down. LOL!!
Edited by fa1321 on Dec 23, 2010 - 07:59 AM. -
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Posted: Dec 23, 2010 - 11:38 AM
Can't have that! Everyone stick to fiberglass beachcats!
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Posted: Dec 23, 2010 - 06:12 PM
from the makers view polyethylene is great for another reason
after 10-20 years, in the sun?, it hardens and cracks and that's the end of that
by then too the soft plastic is showing so many scratches and gouges it looks a complete mess and there's nothing that can be done to make it look like new
frp meanwhile gets oxidized gelcoat and if in water, osmosis bubbles under the gelcoat
and ..........................
that's about it! and with a little polishing and some gelcoat it can be made to look like new again for a few hours work
my nacra is 29years old next year and will still whip the ass of pretty much any plastic cat out there
so plastic is great for it's cheapness and toughness
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Posted: Dec 23, 2010 - 08:13 PM
i can patch hole in fiberglass. kinda hard to patch a hole in polyethylene though. what do ya do slop some marinetex in it and call it a day? hope they make a bunch of cheap replacement hulls. -
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Posted: Dec 23, 2010 - 10:19 PM
thought these holes looked like handles...noticed some handle looking indentions on the stearn. love the hull design, wondering about the roto hulls speed...is it cheaper to produce? how much? has there been a new innovation in the roto process? what is hobie usa doing?
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bill harris
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Posted: Dec 24, 2010 - 01:49 AM
You can patch polyethylene using FRP, it is just a more involved process. Fibreglass work is much easier. I have had a polyethylene kayak for about 12 years now and beaten the crap out of it and stored it outside. The keel is scratched up but the deck looks like the day I bought it. Don't think long term durability is a problem, the UV inhibitors they use now are even more effective than when I bought that boat.
Wow I would be super interested in an F18 made from polyethylene! Especially if they can bring the cost down to close to $10,000 something like that would certainly help to boost the popularity of cats!
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Posted: Dec 24, 2010 - 09:29 AM
I can see them being a hit with the resorts, tough as nails. It will be interesting to see how they kep the weight down, plastic hulls are heavy. If they make them thin they loose the stiffness. I think the Wave weighs in at 250ish, so 3 & change in a 3' longer boat might be pretty good performance. Also good to see symetrical hulls, & boardless will make it easy for beginners.
Way back in the 70's I used to take "shop", it was fun & you learned some useful things.
One of the modules was "plastics". We did laminations, injection molding, & rotation molding, yes the school had a small injection & roto molder. If memory serves me the molds were steel, though I could be wrong. We placed a measured amount of pellets into one 1/2, bolted the two halves together & afixed it to a gimbaling device in the oven. The mold had to be rotated in two axis in order to get the melted material to flow evenly. After removal from the mold you had to trim the distinct edge where the halves fit together. Our unit was not large, the boys mostly made orange road hockey balls, slightly larger than a tennis ball, hard as rock & hurt like hell when you got hit.
The process must be better now, I remember the plastic never flowing evenly, resulting in a ball that was unbalanced. A slapshot resulted in a corkscrewing trajectory, it was always a crapshoot as to which way you should jump to avoid another bruise. I'm sure there are laws against kids making things like that today, we always looked like someone should call the child abuse line.
It will beinteresting to see how this new Cat stacks up against the Classic. Anything that gets youngsters back onto Cats is good for the sport.
I agree with Dave, I think they will be durable. The original Waves are getting up in years, & i have a whitewater kayack that sits in the sun/snow all year & is as flexible as new. I have heard they are very difficult to patch, no more 10 minutes on Googl & away you go with a grinder.
Edited by Edchris177 on Dec 24, 2010 - 08:59 AM.
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Posted: Dec 24, 2010 - 08:45 PM
note the bow bar holding everything together, the mold technique probably means internal stringers can't be used and so the bar is needed to give the hulls enough stiffness to stop the hulls folding in when trapped and flying..............
is it twin trapped, that'll say a lot about it's strength
i think it will be about the same price as the 16' getaway and that's before you load on the options...should perform better but i'm guessing performance will still be well down on a glass boat....plastic is still so much heavier if stiffness is required
i like the holes in the bows, if they do end up on the new wildcat and seem to work i might cut some ends off a windsurfer mast and put them in the bows of my 5.2
Edited by erice on Dec 24, 2010 - 06:46 PM. -
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Posted: Dec 28, 2010 - 12:43 PM
The Hobie spec sheet shows a double trap as an option.
It also shows a spin is an option, and 2 part mast is an option. So not sure if you could have a 2 piece mast with a spin, or one or the other. It looks to me like a high performance version of the Getaway. May or may not be faster then a traditional H16, but my money is on faster.
I would not be worried about strength and durability, I think there is a good body of work of durable rotomolded boats out there from Hobie. The Hobie Wave's I have seen at resorts has destroyed sails, rudder assemblies and tramps, but the hulls are still in good shape.
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Posted: Jan 10, 2011 - 05:59 PM
After sailing the crap out of a fleet of Waves in Antigua for the last 10 days, winds of 20-25 mph gusts to 30 mph & discussing the boats with the resort operators I have changed my mind on plastic boats, & I have to agree with the last quote.
With regards to wear & tear it must be remembered that these boats sit rigged in the tropical sun, sails up every day. (The sails are taken down each night)They get launched through the sand & driven up onto the beach at least 1/2 dozen times a day.
The boats were divided into two groups, 2005 models, & 2000 models. I was told sails last 2 years, then get replaced rather than repaired once they get a bit faded. The 5 year boats were pretty stiff & still looked newish. The 10 year boats were all soft on the tops, between the beams, with one showing a definite sunken crease all the way between the two seating areas, on both hulls. You could push it down easily with your fingers. It seems that the plastic gives way after a certain amount of usage. There would be no way to fix this as you could with an FRP hull. One 10 year boat was "parts only", the molding for the gudgeons had separated, again, an FRP could be repaired.
The boss told me this group was pretty much ready to be replaced. He claimed they bought them for $3400 USD, a hull was $9&change, so it wasn't worth it to buy a new hull, they just got new boats & saved the old for parts. The beams, masts, rudders,Bob, etc all looked to have lots of life left, so Hobie is putting out pretty durable stuff.
The bottoms do wear out in the sand & are much more difficult to repair than FRP. There are several tutorials here for the fix (FRP), & newbies have done it without to much trouble. The boss showed me a product that came in two flat cans, that they mixed & applied to the bottom, "just before the foam was exposed". He claimed they bought it in the US, but the writing was all German, so I don't know what it was. He also showed me where they used a heat gun to smooth out larger gouges. Other than the hulls being soft on top, they looked remarkably good, still shiny.
We wouldn't use/abuse our boats like these, they probably age three years for every calendar year. I don't believe there will be a problem with the plastic getting brittle, but they will wear. Once they do start to let go, you would have to replace the hulls. I don't think you will see many still alive at the 30 year mark.
Edited by Edchris177 on Jan 10, 2011 - 04:07 PM.
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Posted: Jan 11, 2011 - 12:04 PM
Those resort boats get used all day every day. I am always amazed at the abuse they take. Thanks for the info you collected on your trip. Sounds like a nice trip. I wonder how a fiberglass boat would hold up to daily use like that. Yes it could be repaired, but how often would it need to be repaired?
I have seen some 10 year old waves on trailers that look practically new. It all depends on how much they are used. I wish I used my boat more, but with weather and other family obligations I don't get to use it every week anymore. However all the Getaways on our beach (probably 30+ Getaways) the hulls appear to look like new as I walk by. Some have faded tramps, but the hulls look great. I have also seen a lot of H16's junked due to soft hulls, granted they are old boats, but fiberglass does degrade if not properly stored and maintained, and aften not worth fixing.
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