TRY THE TRI
Hobie Mirage Island kayaks can be sailed, fished, pedaled or paddled, depending on your mood.
In 1950, hobie alter built his first surfboard. He later opened Southern California’s first surf shop and went on to invent the first polyurethane-foam surfboard. By the late 1960s, he was thinking about boats, and his Hobie Cat introduced a whole new generation of sailors to the sport. ¶ Today, Hobie is known for surfboards, sailboats and a whole lot more, including kayaks that grace the lazarettes of many superyachts around the globe. The company’s MirageDrive pedal kayaks are popular because they can be used with or without paddling if guests’ arms tire out. Hobie’s inflatable pedal kayaks make onboard stowage easier, and its Pro Angler fishing kayaks can get yachtsmen off the sport-fishing mothership and into the shallows. ¶ The Mirage Island design is arguably the most multipurpose offering in Hobie’s stable of kayaks; it can
be used for paddling, pedaling, fishing or sailing. These kayaks are available for single or tandem users, and they come with a retractable centerboard to make sailing easier. In skinny water, Hobie’s “kick-up” technology means that hitting a rock or the sandy bottom won’t be a problem. The kayak doesn’t get stuck; instead, underwater appendages “kick up” so the kayaker can keep going. ¶ And for those who want to use a Mirage Island kayak to fish, Hobie makes the setup friendly to Lowrance displays. It comes standard with a built-in transducer mount and through-hull cable plugs, so a transducer (sold separately) can be added to find the fish. ¶ Perhaps the best feature of the Mirage Island, though, is that it can be beached and then relaunched. So, when you find a sandy spit with nobody else around, you can take advantage of that opportunity too.
Hobie Alter didn’t just create toys; he created a way of life, a new way of looking at our watery world. —the history of hobie