You project urself as an expert sailor but u may over estimate urself. Othervise u would know that your controll problems are not HUnter's problem but generated by u not understanding what is "mast rake" and your boat is obviously out of tune. You also either bought her from someone did not care about her or urself let her down. Mine is a 1992 legend 35.5 and does not show what you complain about. I can reef the main in 30 seconds and she is capable to reach 8 kts. See the picture attached: at AWS 8 knots she is making 6 kts.Talk to experts in your marina, get your boat tuned by a real expert and read books.
Thats fantastic you are able to sail 8kts with your boat. it would up my game to post a speed indicator on my mast versus studying the GPS data later in the day. I can get the 170 to plane when the wind is over 10 kts and if the rudder is humming i know im over 7kt. I do need to find others to sail with. I sailed with the instructor at my club once when they wanted to demo the 170 and got good tips for tiller and mainsheet handling and dock approaches with jib and main up.
My experience in sailing is with ownership of a 2004 Hunter 170, RC Sailing, and sunfishes. Im no expert and lack keel boat XP, but do have lots if cause and effect study of small boat design, enough to call out the myths and bad examples in most sailingbooks.
The 170 i sail has the following controls.
Tiller, mainsheet (midboom deck mounted), outhaul, vang, halyard, jibsheet, and topping lift. Centerboad is raised when main is reefed.
No traveler, no jib sheet tracks, no spinnaker or bowsprite, no backstay, no cunningham, no furler for reefed jib, no turnbuckles, no canting keel, no wieghted keel, no keel, no trapeze, no hiking strap or hiking bar. No place to store anything, no head, no sette, no corian countertops, no teak, no pushbutton winches....
Theres no opportunity to tune this thing either brother, other than to buy new Norths Sails...
No one is going to help tune my boat since there is no reference standard published by Hunter that gives any indication of what good sailing is for the 170. Its a running joke about the shrouds of the 170 in the promotional material. The boat is designed for people that think the boat looks like a big charter and it wont clobber them in a gybe. The target market expects to raise the sail and lower the sail without dying. The boat is not raced so there is almost no online community. It cant be camped so even local trailer squadrons are hard to hang out with. It doesnt fit in this world and really, they should be destroyed. I was that target market.
Now i am the target market that is frustrated with no jib sheet tracks and no asymetrical sail, no traveler, no boom kicker or topping lift flicker or hiking straps. The part that makes me mad is the boat is not designed to be "upgraded". I have to sell it to grow. I really like the "form factor" and it does look somewhat sexy. When i walk around the mast up lot, i see boats like the american 18, precision 185, rs venture, hobie getaway, wetas, vx's, and they check off many requirements while also having clear construction advantages. Things like fiberglass contruction, storage, hiking straps, Asymetrical spinnakers, deck mounted masts that are less than 20 feet, low centers of gravity, list goes on. Really simple stuff that should've be designed as part of the 146, and 170 and 18.
Hunter sells on value. Those business have to die, be rebranded, and reborn, since there is no real loyalty. The companies that create a value product soon find competitors that can cut corners quicker than they can. Its stupid for westernized society to make value products since the labor force is too educated, too expensive, cant be dominated and generally has more legal problems. As soon as a value competitor has a few improvements it immediatly depricates the dated and uninspired original product. Value companies start to skimp on IT, R&D, next followed by marketing, then infrastrucure. Soon all thats left is local workers trying to buy time while they find a new gig with health benefits. Now even the labor force could care less.
Hop over the the West Marine thread. They dont give a fk about value. The day tbey do they are as dead as Sears. They are a brand that sells high on purpose. They are selling on the side of tbe profit curve where volume is less, invetory can be less, tbe risk of product outages is almost nill, the stores are clean, the customers easily managed with fewer staff. If they sold on the other side of the price curve they would have to keep more inventory, incur higher traffic counts and basically, move stuff from one place to another and out the door for the same profit as selling less stuff. The product would be less about status and more utility. They actively stock redicously overpriced luxery items. A value brand has no loyalty or status, generic, and usually has just enough cost cutting changes to make the quality slightly noticable.
