Protecting my knees

Looking around, I see lots of people getting perfectly acceptable results without doing much more than perching with no load on the knees at all.  Currently rehabilitating my hip (broken in a bike crash), I'm finding the Miracle I'm borrowing seems to go just fine with me sat on the side.  I'd like to hike it, but am now not so convinced it would bring a lot, especially when the big gains are made by spotting wind shifts and gusts, and sailing in the right direction, something that is appreciably easier sat upright.

Frankly, I'd be more concerned about twisting my knee tacking, especially since I tore my cartilage on a Laser 2 and had to have an op. (21 years ago and all fine now with the right exercises).  I'd really urge you to get a good physio (or two) and learn a good set of exercises to develop the muscles all around the knee - the ones on the sides are small but critical, and easily overlooked.

Not that you would notice !  Racing even at club level and certainly above requires the helm to 'use' the  width advantage or lose out to at least any other Blaze that does use it as intended.  The wing system does weight something like 8-9kg in total and there is obviously additional windage... so you need to use it or lose out.    It is however pretty comfortable and as someone who has had an occasional nagging knee problem following a motorbike accident several decades ago I rate it better than any other singlehander I have owned/raced... might be different for other folks of course.