Carl,

Thanks for your replay regarding safety lines. Experience such as yours goes a long way in helping me think about the options. Like you, I have found myself washed off the boat and body surfing near the transom while still attached to the trapeze wire. Since I do a lot of my sailing in steep breaking chop (similar to what you probably see a lot of on the Great Lakes), I'm looking for a clean, simple system to keep me and my crew from being thrown either fore or aft. I still haven't found it. I experimented with a setup similar to Jim's, using an adjustable prussik loop on a line running from transom to shroud. The drawback was having loops and biners trailing in the water off the leeward hull. I've seen the setups that retract into the rear beam, but they only work in one direction (preventing the trip around the forestay).

The ideal solution must be out there. And, you're right, it has to be utterly clean and simple. The words of Antoine de St. Exupéry sum up the goal very well.

[color:"#666666"]"In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away..."[/color]