K1 single-handed keelboat

I sailed this boat at Hamble last weekend and it was very interesting. The conditions were light, about 6 knots of wind with fairly flat water occasionally stirred up by passing ribs and power boats.

The K1 is superb up wind, it points high and heels gradually until the keel weight holds it upright. It does respond to hiking and is also very comfortable to do that with the cockpit being deeper than it perhaps looks on photographs. It certainly seems to slice through the water and feels best with your weight well forward and the stem just kissing the water.

Reaching felt good although there was too little wind to get a real feel for its potential.

On a run however the boat felt completely different, particularly in light winds. The very round bilges mean that there is almost no form stabilty and so the K1 doesn't really know where it should be between about 40 degrees either side of upright. This means that in light conditions you have to sit in the centre of the boat to achieve the right balance. For me that was sitting on the floor with my feet lying over the side decks and my back against the other side deck.

In the very light wind, goosewinging was difficult and I felt a fly away whisker pole is needed to stabilise the headsail. I think in stronger winds the boat will gain stabilty from its forward speed and I look forward to trying her in brisker winds.

All in all I enjoyed the experience and I think that the K1 offers a superb platform for people like me who find hard hiking and the fitness required to get the best out of single handed dinghies a distant meomory. And it would be good to have a few of these out at hamble on Wednesday evenings.

It certainly won't be as bad as a Laser - the K1 hull is designed to sail well even when heeled, and the keel will even things out to some extent, but I'm sure that a hiked boat will beat a non-hiked above a given wind strength.

For a notional two-man + trap boat, I'd favour a lighter keel with just enough weight to self-right and a hull optimised for sailing upright (makes sense with the trapeze).

I don't think anyone was proposing that the K1 should have a trapeze but rather a bigger two-man version.

But with the K1 you'll be competing with people who are hiking, so if you don't in order to save your knees, you'll be a disadvantage. Personally, I liked the original concept of banning hiking on the K1.

With a crew on the wire of a two-man boat, the imperative for the helm to hike wouldn't be nearly as great.

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