Okay, how about a soda can sized compressed air cylinder with mouthpiece similar to what helicopter pilots and some scuba rescue folk use?

Mounted somewhere on the body (preferably out of the way but within easy access to a distressed person), this would allow the person to at least have 1 -2 minutes of extra air to calm down and figure out a way to get un-tangled (regardless of which trapeze system they are using).

Even 30 seconds of extra air can work wonders.

How about streamlining the whole boat to minimize the risk of entanglement? Internally run control lines come to mind.

A quick release system wouldn't have to undo the entire harness (in the case of a full harness), but just the spreader bar in the case of the hook system. I'm not sure what would catch on the ball system.

The lycra stretch "rashers" that go over all the person's sailing equipment would also tend to reduce the likelihood of something tangling up on the sailor.

Most of all - adult or competent sailor supervision when sailing with small children or those not used to the "dangers" of sailing.

I know that as an 11 year old, I was not allowed to take our sunfish (or H17 with my brother) out unsupervised until I was able to tip it over and right it myself several times in various conditions.

Of course, once we found out it was fun to flip those things over, we didn't get much sailing done on light air days. More of the following situation played out:

(2 sunfish in lake, small triangle race course, light winds)

- Boat 1 approaches boat 2 prior to "start sequence" (someone saying "Go")
- Boat 1 announces "You can't even sail that thing!" (or some similar smack talk)
- Boat 2 responds "STAY AWAY FROM ME, MAN"
- Boat 1 driver sails astride boat 2, jumps to boat 2, stands up and grabs mast, hikes out and dumps boat 2
- Boat 2 driver grabs Boat 1 (currently unattended) and does the same
- First boat to right usually wins race.

It took me a few more years of actual racing to realize that sailboat racing is a game of tactics, not "last boat upright gets the lead" (well, that is still the case in heavy wind, but not because the skipper swam over and dumped the competitor's boat).

But still, there was a sort of twisted enjoyment in the "australian rules/Full contact" sailing....

Good times..