K1 single-handed keelboat

I appreciate that that isn't legal on a K6, but it's always puzzled me that more keelboats don't use trapezes.

Trapezing is basically more comfortable and less demanding than hiking, the only proviso being that a certain agility is required on lively dinghies to get in and out on gusty days, but a keelboat will give plenty of time and the consequences of a tea-bagging won't include a capsize. Wasn't it Paul Elvstrom who said that he couldn't understand why the Star (or was it F15?) didn't use a trapeze?

Yes, the Tempest, but you still have to be huge and strong to crew a Tempest competitively!

But in boats like the F15/K6 if you're using the lead during racing you aren't fast - they need to be sailed upright (I believe Ian Barker's F15 world champ crew was 6'6" and 18 stone to achieve this!). So they could be sailed more comfortably if crews could trapeze.

Trapezing a keelboat is such an obvious possibility I'm amazed it's not common.

Why hike your knees off when you have such a nice stable platform to trapeze that even your granny could do it?

I took out a 50 yo mate in my K6 in a 20-25 knots breeze. He had hardly ever sailed before and we had a blast with him on the trapeze. He loved it (but we didn't hoist the gennaker though). Doing the same thing with as an example a 505 would not work at all.

As you stated there are a lot of benefits with using trapezes on a sports boat and hardly any disadvantages at all.

Cheers