A few Hobie Wave Sailing Notes

Introduction
Hopefully you've read the webpage "Sailing a Hobie Wave." The information there is courtesy of Hobie as a basic primer on Wave sailing. If you've trained / checked out on the Hobie Waves, this shouldn't be anything new to you but should serve as a good refresher. My intention here is to jot down a couple things I've noticed while sailing the Hobies. A good chunk of this will be apparent if you've checked out on the Hobies already. Otherwise, feel free to read and try it out during your training. For the purposes of these notes, I'll assume you've checked out on the G-22 or Capri. If you have any questions or comments, additions or corrections, feel free to email me.

1) Don't forget: the Hobie Wave is NOT a keelboat!
Again, the Hobie Wave is NOT a keelboat. This idea is key to just about everything else in this document. After sailing normal keelboats for awhile, I tend to forget that you can't sail the Hobie Wave the same way. With all the Fairwind keelboats, you expect a certain level of a) pointing ability upwind and b) the boat turns on a dime (relatively). The typical keelboat will almost always point higher upwind than a Hobie wave. That said, don't expect to be able to tack up the marina channel just like you would on something like the G-22 or Soling. The quicker you accept this fact, the faster you'll get moving on a Hobie.

Besides pointing up wind, other advantage a keelboat will have on the Hobie is turning ability. On the G-22 or Capri, when you push the tiller over, the boat turns. Quickly. The farther over you push the tiller, the faster the boat turns. As the boat turns, it pivots over the keel. You can observe this while docking, when you push the tiller over and make essentially a 90 degree turn to head into the slip without the boat moving too far laterally. The Hobies, on the other hand, don't really like to turn. Without a keel, the Hobie has no pivot to turn on and tends to turn in big arcs. You can liken this to a floating bottle in a bath tub. If you try to turn the bottle by pushing on one end of the bottle, the whole bottle moves in the water. You might be able to turn it, but it will have moved away from you in the process. Going back to the tiller comparison, if you push the tiller of a Hobie cat over like you push the tiller on the G-22/Capri, the Hobie cat won't turn. Well, to be honest, it will turn a bit but the boat will essentially stop moving (forward). Hobies like to turn gradually.

2) If it's not a keelboat, don't tack like a keelboat.
Tacking on a Hobie is not like tacking on the keelboats. Like I said earlier, if you push the tiller over hard to tack quickly, the Hobie will essentially stop in its tracks and you'll get stuck in irons. That is, in short, no good. The optimal way to tack a Hobie is gradually. Allow for extra space to tack, starting your tack earlier than you would on the G-22/Capri. In an ideal situation, the procedure I like to follow while tacking is:

a) Fall off a little, allowing the boat to pick up some speed. b) Start to come about, pushing the tiller gradually over. c) As the boat starts to head upwind, push the tiller over more. d) When you are close to in irons, the tiller should be at maximum deflection (not much more than 45 degrees off center) e) As you come through the wind, allow the boat to overtack slightly, which will help you pick up a little more speed. Head up when the boat starts moving again. (The figure to the right is a rough idea of what the tack should look like from above. Forgive the bad computer sketch.)

Be sure to watch your sail as you come about. With the sails only being 1 year old, occasionally the top most batten in the sail will get stuck in an inverted position. Scull / jiggle the sail by hand to get the batten right-side-out.

3) Hobies like to jibe (or gybe, however you want to spell it)

While some sailors get a little paranoid about jibing, the Hobies turn WAY better while jibing than tacking. This is useful to remember in those situations where you're not moving too fast but need to change course. If you don't have enough speed, you won't be able to tack. Instead, fall off and jibe, which will get you moving quicker without running the risk of getting stuck in irons. Just remember to sheet in a bit (or hold the mainsheet at the centerline) before jibing to go a little easier on the sail / rigging.

4) While learning, the boat is bound to stop on you. Don't forget about backwinding.

Like I mentioned earlier, if you try to turn the boat too fast, it's just going to stop. For that matter, if you try to tack without enough speed, the boat is going to stop. In this situation, there's a couple things you can do. 1) You can sit there and hope the breeze will eventually turn you such that you get enough speed to turn again. 2) You can hope the passing motorboats create enough of a wake to push your boat off the wind. 3) You can backwind. Backwinding is the easiest way to get the Hobie moving again. Just push your sail out in the direction you want to head and wait for the boat to come around. If I need to get moving in a hurry, I'll unclip the mainsheet so I can push the sail out farther (or I'm too lazy to pull the sheet through the blocks).

Once you get moving again, sheet in the main and get some momentum before trying to manuver again. If you're short on space to pick up speed, consider jibing (see above).

4.5) Ok... so there's one other thing you can do while stopped.

The last thing you can do while stopped is scull the rudders. What's sculling you ask? Pumping the tiller back and forth to use the rudders as a fan. I'm sure you've done it before on the other boats for fun (or to avoid paddling). You can scull on the Hobies to get the boat moving a little. Pumping faster in one direction will normally get you turning.

4.5.5) Oh.... one more thing (about being stopped).

If the wind absolutely dies or in case of emergencies, you can paddle like a surfboard. Lie out on one of the hulls and paddle away. You can actually get moving pretty decently like this.

5) Getting the boat upright again (in case you flip it)

Having the dubious distinction of being the only guy to have flipped a Hobie during the Fairwind races, a couple pointers about getting the boat back upright. Flipping a Hobie in the main channel is a little more nerve racking than flipping it by Mother's Beach. There's usually more traffic about than by the beach. While bobbing around in the water, take a quick second to assess the situation, paying attention to what traffic is around you before trying to right the boat. Then, turn the boat upwind. This is probably the 3rd thing you want to do (after assessing the situation and making sure you and whoever was with you is ok). The trampoline on the Hobies will catch wind, blowing the boats downwind into the rocks along the side of the channel. You really don't want to get into this situation of being pinned up on the rocks with an overturned Hobie. So, make sure you orient the trampoline such that it's pointed into the wind. Then, go unclip the mainsail.

As part of the checkout process, you should have been able to right the boat from a toppled position. A number of people have trouble getting back onto the boat after you get it upright. A couple ideas to help get back onboard: 1) Use the buoyancy of the PFD you're wearing to your advantage. I like to push myself a bit under water, causing the PFD to bring me back to the surface. At the same time, I pull up on the Hobie, using the force of the PFD buoyance along with my pull-up to get me back on the boat. 2) Tie a loop in the painter / righting line. If you need a step for assistance, get the boat righted and tie a bowline or some other loop midway up the painter. This should give you a convienent stepping point to get back on the boat. (That technique can be used with any other boat to help someone overboard get back on.)

Those are my brief notes on the topic. Feel free to email me other pearls of wisdom to add. Hobie's racing group put out a nice document called Hobie U (4.6MB PDF) which documents some of my ideas in better / finer detail. It's worth a read (but is a BIG file.)