What is trapeze sailing?
Sailboats equipped with a trapeze have a wire device which is attached to the top of the mast and serves to trim the weight of the ship through the trapeze sailers. The sailors wear harness trousers, which can be compared to a climbing harness and have a hook in the front at hip height, with which the sailors hang themselves into an eyelet at the lower end of the wire. The height can be adjusted by means of a simple intermediate pulley block and the sailor can now move his body weight away from the ship hanging on the wire at an optimum angle with an optimum lever until he is only connected to the ship with the tips of his toes. Trapeze devices are mostly found on gliding yawls or catamarans, as well as skiffs, on which double trapeze for two sailors can be found more and more often. Trapped in the trapeze trousers, the foresheeters are of course at the mercy of the helmsman's good steering technique. If the helmsman is not yet so experienced, the bowman likes to land in the water - a so-called "Going Lipton".
Modern trapeze trousers
Nowadays, harness trousers are no longer simply hangers with which you hang yourself into the wire. As development has progressed and the physical demands of trapeze sailing have been recognised, it has become clear that the back is probably the most stressed region in trapeze sailing. That's why it should be extremely supported by your harness trousers. Today's harness trousers do this with the help of adjustable shoulder straps and stiff back inserts.
In addition, on today's harness pants you'll find safety systems like a pin that secures the hooks so you can easily remove the hooks if you capsize.