I have given up sailing until I can wear a trapeze harness which doesn't cause lower back pain by compressing my spine and hips. All current harness seem to use flexible materials which put compression forces on the trunk and abdomen even with spreader bars. Are there any harnesses with wide rigid back plates to spread the weight and ease pressure points? Or should I get a sailmaker to do a custom job to try to sort out my problems? There are rigid formed bosuns seats online. Has anyone used them for comfortable trapping? I don't want to reinvent the wheel if there is a real back supporting harness already out there. Suggestions?

I've found my Magic Marine to be perfect for me, I've been comfortable even doing 3hours on the one tack, yoke over head adjustable leg supports, big back plate. Took a while to get it set right but after that it's just step in

My newest harness is the Magic Marine MX2 and I lasted 2 minutes before the pain hit right on the L4,5/S1 joints. After online reading into sailing injuries etc I am looking at info on the Worrell XT, Ronstan PRO with a firm back support, Aquata Equipe XT and a UK harness from Forward Sail with its own integrated lumbar support. So there appear to be options there. Getting to trial those apart from the Ronstan here in Oz may be a bit hard but investigating further. First off am getting a weightlifters back brace to see if that helps.

I have an Aquata Worrell and love it.

A shorter trapeze wire also can help.

On the wire, the measure of "sitting" in your harness versus hanging straight out can be a very critical point for the load on your spinal joints.

Sitting in the harness was just painfull made worse when i leant back to take the pressure on my upper back. That really shifted the pain centre to the hips through compression. Sitting behind a desk for 30 years hasn't helped so core strength exercises are the go and i have my work cut out for me.

I suffered a work-place accident a couple of years ago (catching a couple of G sized oxy cylinders has that effect) it resulted in a stuffed back and as a result my car racing had to cease, which was a good thing as it turned out because it brought me back to sailing

Luckily I have a great Dr. (a very cute SHE Dr. too ) who insisted on me walking & swimming every day... slow 4x4 off-road driving also helped in many suprising ways as I improved....
Walking from one side of the room to the other was initally a huge challenge
It took me 3 weeks of short walks to be able to get to the letter box and back in one shot
At week 8 after the accident I did my first full 1 kilometer walk ( then called for a taxi to get home )

I now walk ~5k's a day

Swimming was much easier on the body, it was more a case of just time in the pool than doing laps that helped



My back is now in the best "expected" condition it can be and I dont suffer much from the injury nowdays at all, mind you, I take every step possible NOT to repeat the experiance

Pirate can you get out on trapeze or is that pushing your back too far?
Surgeons told me in 09 I had arthritic bone spurs causing debilitating back pain. Recently I opted for spinal fusion to reduce the pain, Luckily while dragging my cat up the beach I met a sailor who was a pain management specialist. He diagnosed I have one leg 9mm shorter than the other. Who Knew? Now physio exercises, swimming, walking mean I rarely hit the pills. I thought I was in vastly improved until the harness hit back. Seems I have a lot of work to do.

I've been extremely pleased with the back support and wide spreader in my Neil Pryde harness (I have a slightly older version). Full disclosure - never done any distance racing with it (yet).

I certainly don't get on the trap anywhere near as fast as most others do...... takes me a bit longer


My injury was lower back so I altered a few things to make my life easier to get hooked on as well as getting out on the trap and back in...


1/
added thigh straps to the harness, this took away the 'crutch load' which was placing direct pressure on my spine, the leg straps take away the load off my spine and put it more into my hips.


2/
the harness hook was moved up to sit just above my belly-button, this took the lateral loading of the harness up higher on my back so the pressure of the harness is now above the damaged part of my spine.... the pressure is now on my rib cage whereas it was far lower prior to the harness mods.


3/
the dog-bone ring was moved higher up the trap wire. I actually have to do a little body 'hop' in order to hook on, once hooked on the ring stays on the hook as I move out over the side, once out on the trap I can then lower myself down via the trap's pulley system..... out on the trap I have 'weight' mainly on my thigh/hip area and mid rib area, there's hardly any load on my lower back



Like everything it was a bit of trial & error with my current setup, its not perfect by any means but its far more friendly than it was to start with, I've also spent time doing dry runs or 'land practice' to sort out when and where I get into trouble pain wise.... and subsquently the learning curve on how to avoid that pain


practice makes perfect

Excellent. Great options to trial. thanks.