Super Tiger

I’ve received some mails and comments on the “Super Tiger” , well here it is.
4 Hobie Wildcat foils, and an Infusion mast (only due to the original broken on land on a storm). Sails are Soldano’s Ullman from Mischa’s black beast Wildcat.

Gonzalo Nieto is the owner, a new local F18 sailor that last year got his first F18. This specific Tiger is the 1st Arg F18 champ in 2009, that took the crown over over an RC by only 3 points (with wind the RC keep the pace and won the last 3 races)

The previous owner migrated to a Wildcat, and the local fleet is now all Infusions, C2, Caps and now 2 Phantoms.
Gonzalo put lots of hours, money and effort on this boat, even after a tremendous emotional hit he suffered when the boat was blown out by hurricane winds weeks after buying it that forced some of the changes/upgrades.
He finally managed to get this boat performing against a new generation of F18s.

I race with him and with the Tiger for the first time 2 weeks ago, and we managed to have good speed, a couple of mid fleet scores and a great 3rd. And we ended in front the previous owner on his  Wildcat 3 out of 4 races…imagine his grin!

Upwind in the breeze this boat is ballistic. Downwind I felt lots of drive too.
Yesterday we felt again that power keeping the pace upwind in the breeze, later we broke the spi so we couldn´t keep racing the pre Arg event.

Next week I’ve been invited to helm it again for the 2012 F18 Arg Nats.
We will push hard again and see what we can do.
But whichever the result I can assure already that this is a great boat, and good team can race a top level with it.
And it is still today an enduring Flag of the great Hobie legacy

I would like to see what Bissaro-dePaoli can do on one, could be nice promo for Hobie for sure.
I once wrote on the blog: “The King is Dead, Long Live King” referring to the change of guard on designs from the Tiger to the Infusion, but it seems the retired King can still give the new guys on the block a run for their money.