From pro-tour racer to beach-camping cruiser

The Hobie Way of Life

Hobart "Hobie" Alter started shaping balsa surfboards in his parents' Laguna Beach garage in the 1950s, pioneered the polyurethane foam board, and in 1968 launched the Hobie 14, a 14-foot catamaran light enough to drag up a beach. The Hobie 16 followed in 1970 and became the best-selling catamaran in history. By the late 1970s the brand was a lifestyle: Tequila Sunrise sails, beach regattas, the sunburst logo, and the slogan "The Hobie Way of Life."

Through the 1980s the fleet grew upward: the Hobie 18 (1976), the Hobie 17 (1985), and then the biggest beach cat Hobie would ever build.

1987: the Hobie 21

The Hobie 21 was Hobie's answer to the high-performance cats of the day. It kept the beach-cat formula, fiberglass-and-foam hulls on aluminum crossbars with a trampoline, but at 21 feet 4 inches with a roughly 33-foot Comptip mast, twin centerboards, twin trapezes and an asymmetric spinnaker option, it was a different animal. Sailboat databases record that it was developed as a one-design for a professional racing circuit that ran only briefly in the late 1980s, and that roughly 900 were built between 1987 and 1990. Beam figures in the record vary from 9 feet 6 inches to 10 feet 3 inches; the beam retracted to about 8 feet for trailering. Owners today call this boat the 21 SE to tell it apart from the Cruiser.

1992: the Sport Cruiser

With the pro tour gone, Hobie reworked the 21 for the family market. The Sport Cruiser kept the hulls and rig geometry but changed almost everything you touch: fold-out wing seats with vinyl trampoline covers, three "Cat Cabin" storage compartments molded into the deck, a built-in 68-quart marine cooler, a reefable roller-furling mainsail and a roller-furling jib on a shorter 29-foot Comptip mast, Harken blocks, a single trapeze, kick-up rudders for beaching, and options for a motor mount, a boom tent for overnighting, a Gennaker kit and an anchor bridle. Weight went to about 600 pounds and sail area came down to 222 square feet.

The assembly manual opens with the pitch in one line: "The beauty of the 21 Sport Cruiser is that a single adult can sail it at top performance, and a crew of four can cruise in comfort." Hobie's own archived page adds: "The Hobie 21 Sport Cruiser is no longer in production, but it is such a cool boat that we are maintaining this page just to share the story!"

The end of the line

Used-boat listings show Sport Cruisers built as late as 1998 and 1999. Starting around 2003, with the small-sailboat market shrinking and the company's attention moving to kayaks and the Mirage Drive, Hobie discontinued a run of its catamarans: the 17 and 18 first, then the 21SC, 14, 20 and Bravo. Hobie still maintains a support page and a forum board for the 21, but by 2017 both the SE and SC Comptips were confirmed discontinued, and the model-specific castings and fittings have followed. The boats themselves are built solid. The challenge is everything bolted to them.