When Paul, Anne and I did some two boat training under the supervision of John Pierce prior to the Global Challenge it was quicker for me (single handed) not to trapeze downwind. The wind was was around a force 4 and the sea state went from flat to a two foot swell further out in the Bay (Mumbles) On every run Anne would be trapezing and I experimented. My biggest gain was when I wasn't trapezing and flying the windward hull pretty high. The angle of the leeward hull compared to the sea gave a lot of lift to the bow and it also slid across the water really smoothly when I had to bear away in some of the gusts. I think all parties involved were quite surprised at the results. When I tried trapezing there wasn't that great a difference in speed but I was going lower. However, Paul and Anne took lumps out of me on the Gybe and when we started ploughing into the swell I was really struggling to stay in control of the boat and my actions until eventually I went for a closer look at the leach of the main.
This two boat tunning certainly proved to me that although flying a kite from the trap looks cool single handed, when it's blowing around a force 3.5 to 4 it is quicker and sometimes safer to sit in, get a hull flying HIGH (between 3'-4'or 900-1200mm off the water) and keep it there.
P.S I would also have to agree with Wayne. If anybody deserves the 'T' shirt for being the first person to kick butt single handed on an F16 then Aaron Young would get my vote. He was trapezing downwind whilst Altered was still an 'A'