From today's Scuttlebutt:

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After the near death of a friend, 49er sailor Magnus Gravare, when his

trapeze harness hook became tangled in rigging and pulled him under, 49er

designer Julian Bethwaite turned his considerable skills to producing a

safer harness.



The first prototype was "based on a pull pin, quick release system where, if

you got into trouble, you reached down, yanked a string and the whole hook

simply came away from the harness. That unit was used for about a year and

worked faultlessly both in simulated operation and also in race practice.



Then, fortuitously, I loaned the harness to a friend. It came back a week

later with the entire mechanism taped up to render it completely

inoperative! In much the same way some sailors tape up their hobbles on a

Soling, even though it is a patently stupid thing to do, this sailor had

rendered the whole purpose of the buckle completely pointless. It was back

to the drawing board!"



Bethwaite's final solution: a keyball system that eliminates the hook. "This

year we have had the Tornado sailor in Spain, the Topaz sailor in Hong Kong

and the very unfortunate young English girl sailing a Laser 4000 - all very

tragic accidents where trapeze hooks have done exactly what they are

designed to do, hook on and hang on."



"It is impossible for anyone to suggest that any system is fool proof but it

is fair to say that if you dramatically reduce the likelihood and the

opportunity of becoming snared or entangled, then the risk is reduced. The

keyball system attempts to do this."



The Bethwaite Trapeze Harness is now in production and will be represented

around the world by the following licensees:



Bethwaite Design, Australia, http://www.bethwaite.com

Performance Sailcraft 2000 Inc, North America, http://www.ps2000.ca

Ovington Boats, UK, http://www.ovingtonboats.co.uk

Takao Otani, Japan Asia, otani@cityfujisawa.ne.jp

Corsin Camenisch, Switzerland, corsin.camenisch@guma.ch

Joe Chan, China, joenmaria@i-cable.com

Brian Lion-Cachet, South Africa, blion@iafrica.com

Martin Billoch in South America, mabilloch@hotmail.com



For more information and photos of the harness in action see:

http://www.bethwaite.com/bethwaite/accessories/acc_index.htm and

http://www.madforsailing.com/SAIL/Articles.nsf/LookUp/20BC4EE505662CD180256C

1700600D42?OpenDocument

Nice sites,...anyone have the conversion rate of AUS to US dollars,....I believe it is around 50% ( $1.00 USD = $2.00 Aus)

...but I am unsure..



Bruce

Try http://www.x-rates.com/

It looks like slightly more than half, .551001 US to Aussi

OK,..price conversion here



a nice harness with alloy buckle..........$275AUS = $ 151.25 USD



alloy buckle alone.............................$140AUS = $ 77.00 USD



carbon buckle alone..........................$180AUS = $ 99.00 USD



male part of system( pair)..................$ 32AUS = $ 17.60 USD for a pair



....add shipping to all prices,....check my math too,....otherwise these look like good numbers,......seems like harness/buckle is the buy here..



Bruce



St. Croix

Anybody on the forum actually try these out yet?

Rather than buying the entire setup, I'd think about just getting the ball and plate. I'm pretty satisfied with the overall harness itself. I'm wondering if the length of the ball/rope are comparable to the size of the standard dogbone.



Sheldon

P-18