Sport: Happiness Is a Hobie Cat

For thousands of weekend sailors, summer means just one thing

The brilliant palette of Dacron sail stands taut in the breeze, while below it the bright twin pontoons slice the sea into a foaming, sun-dazzled wake. As the breeze quickens, one of the pontoons flies free of the water, bringing whoops of excitement from the boat’s two occupants.

Welcome to the world of the Hobie Cat addict, that 100,000-strong armada of hopelessly smitten enthusiasts who insist that nothing in life quite measures up to the unrestrained joy of breezing along on a twin-hulled Hobie.

The Hobie catamaran, which suggests a Polynesian outrigger canoe with a sail, is the creation of Nautical Designer Hobart (Hobie) Alter, 47, of Capistrano Beach, Calif. In the 13 years since the first Hobie Cat set sail, the craft has become the favorite American weekend sailboat by far and helped make Alter a millionaire several times over. Though the twin hulls of Hobie Cats make the vessels a bit tougher to maneuver than single-hulled sailboats, the real thrill of skippering a Cat is in its exhilarating speed. The lightweight vessels can reach a motorboat clip of nearly 25 m.p.h. in a fresh wind. Exclaimed the America’s Cup champion Ted Turner after sailing a Hobie Cat: “That’s the most fun I ever had in my whole life on any sailboat, and I’ve been on a lot of sailboats!”

Hobie Cats come in sizes ranging from 14 ft. to 18 ft., but the most popular is the Hobie 16, which sells for about $3,000, plus some $400 more for a package of extras like a colored sail. More than 50,000 of the aluminum and fiberglass vessels have been sold since the model was launched in 1971, and Hobie 16 races and regattas are now part of the summertime scene from Laguna Beach to Long Island.

Alter, an inveterate tinkerer, endeared himself in the mid-1950s to an earlier generation of Californians by introducing the first mass-produced balsa-wood and fiberglass surfboards. By 1960 he had become the world’s leading supplier of the custom-made, polyure-thane-foam surfboard, which became a symbol of the California lifestyle.

In 1976 Alter, who had grown bored with the administrative end of his sailboat business, sold out to a camping-equipment maker, the Coleman Co. of Wichita, Kans. “I didn’t want to be head of anything because then you have to go to meetings and junk,” says Alter, who instead signed on with Coleman as a designer and began casting about for something different to create. The result: a 33-ft. fiberglass sloop, the Hobie 33. Equipped with a retractable keel and a mast that can be easily removed for transportation, the boat is small enough to be towed behind a car on a trailer, yet large enough to sleep up to seven. The sleek vessel is priced to sail away at about $40,000, vs. as much as $70,000 for other similar size vessels.

Dealers are already queuing up to sell the new boats, the first of which will be ready some time in the fall. Says Edmund Laviano, president of Bellpat Marine of East Patchogue, N.Y.: “The Hobie 33 looks as if it’s doing 30 knots just sitting at the dock. I want one the minute the boat is available.” The tinkerer from Southern California, who shepherded Americans onto surfboards in the 1960s and onto Hobie Cats in the 1970s, now hopes to lead them onto deepwater sailing ships in the 1980s.