The King is dead, long live the king… (II)
Last time we analyzed how the Tornado is being left behind as the top notch catamaran class.
The F18 is slowly gaining terrain and becoming THE performance cat class.
Now at the F18 itself we have a change of guard. The old and trusty Hobie Tiger has been outdated by his most fierce competitor in the cat industry, Nacra and their F18 Infusion.
Two different concepts, 10 years apart.
Here you have both cats, 1st the new paradigm, the Infusion, and below the retiring King (not so fast someone could tell… lets check July Words in Spain) , the Tiger.
Take a look at the volume distribution and of course bow design
Between those two we have a real revolution icon for the F18, the Capricorn from Australia High Performance Catamarans (AHPC). Not having the same resources as Nacra in Europe and USA the Capricorn is less publicized but this pioneer of wave piercing hull (in the F18 world) , is still holding on, and for sure is the predecessor of the Infusion… Morelli&Melvin for sure studied this design while drawing the Infusion…
I just heard that my great sailing friend and former CEO of Hobiecat Europe has passed. May The endless oceans…
...Report was sent by an F18 Sailor, if you want Hobies reported send your own, we'll publish as usual. Cheers.
Looks like in your report the Hobies are not really present. Suggest to rewrite the article.
Thanks for the great report Wik. Great battle.
If I correctly read the results the overall winner this year is a Hobie16