Can you sail national 12 with Trapeze?

[orkney]

I have realised sailing my boat we are 2 lightweight teenagers and will not be able to hold the boat up unless we sail slower, and i am wondering -


Can you sail a National 12 with a Trapeze for the crew?


Thanks!

[Roly Mo]

Highly likely that it will be a one trip trapeze outing, it is unlikely that your mast is strong enough for trapezing and you may find yourself with problems.  It's not something which is allowed under class rules.  Get fit, hike out and remember to spill wind if you get hit by gusts!
RM

[orkney]

Ok, combined we will weigh no more than 15 stone so I reckon it will be a bit of trouble for us.

[angus]

When I first started sailing a 12 with my son we where lighter than that, and we did have problems, but that was mainly due to the set up we had with a poor kicker and no prebend. You want to concentrate on getting the sail as flat as possible using prebend cunningham and outhaul and loads of kicker, possibly raking the mast back a bit (others who know more may coment on that). I was always going to experiement cutting down an old sail, but the boy got bigger and I got better (not much).
By the way your earlier post asking what all the ropes did, the three each side under the thwart are probably kicker, cunningham and outhaul or may be mast ram and the two along the top of the centreboard case are shrouds.
I never liked the controls on the thwart because my crew always sat on them, now my kicker is through a swivel cleat on the centreboard which works fine if I remember to take the end across when I tack. The outhaul comes of the inboard end of the boom and the cunnigham is on the back of the foredeck both cunningham and outhaul are usually worked by the crew but I can reach both of them.
Hope this helps, I am sur if I have miss lead you in anyway somebody will correct me, by the way what sort of kicker arangement have you got, if it is one of the winch type you are probably best throwing it a way and repacling it  with a 16 -1 cascade.