Hi Alan. Thanks for sharing.
I have to disagree with you on the "impossible to right by one or two people". As I mentioned, I've never owned one but I have sailed on one a few times when I lived with an Aunt for a couple of summers on a small lake in Nova Scotia. My cousin and I did flip it one day in some faster winds. OK, they weren't all that fast. I still maintain he did it on purpose for fun as although he was really pushing our angles, he was handling the mainsail by hand, not cleated, so 'maybe' he could have just let go.
He had righted the boat many times before and quickly showed me what to do. It was actually surprisingly easy with two people. He said it can be done with one person if they have enough body weight, something I wouldn't have had back then and maybe not now either as I'm not sure how much is required.
He had two lines rigged up just for this purpose. Once untied, they could be thrown over either side of the boat. He then put his weight on the bow of the boat and it swung itself so that it was sideways to the wind. We then stood on the leeward hull and pulled on the lines. It slowly but steadily pulled the boat over and I don't recall a whole lot of effort. It was actually surprisingly easy as long as you were comfortable leaning backwards knowing the other hull was eventually going to try and fall on top of you.
Again, I'm no expert but I think maybe the big difference was that he had a float at the top of the mast. This kept the boat from turtling so it was never totally inverted. I will definitely have one of these on my Hobie if I end up buying one. Both to have to work less hard to right it and also because of the shallow water I mentioned. If it turtles in some areas, it would undoubtedly bend the mast.
