Greetings,
I had the opportunity to do the development on the "Baby Bud"(I know, 'What's a tunnel guy doing with a three point??!!) and it was an interesting project. I immediately knew Horizon had a "hot item" on it's hands. I should have negotiated a royalty payment rather than a flat fee.
I'm surprised to hear the boat needs a toss to get it up on step. The prototype would pop up easily. I have not seen the production version of the boat. As a possible method of improving getting on step, increasing the angle of attack on the sponsons by attaching a tapered piece of wood to the bottom of the sponsons might be tried. Rather than glue the tapered pieces to the sponson bottoms, using thin double back tape would allow them to be removed. Several different tapered strips could be tested using this method. If it does help, then the strips could be attached with glue.
My contact at Horizon informs me it is possible to purchase just the hull. The only problem(and this is a nice problem to have) is they cannot keep the boat in stock.
Jerry Dunlap