A nice presentation about “Hiking Techniques through the Ages” on stars can be found under http://www.starclass.org/history/star_boat_design_development.htm#hiking.

Most of the following spectacular pictures are taken from this source.

The star sailors took the situation with a typical kind of humour and published the following cartoon in the 1940 log.

A very early analysis about the very strange looking kind of hiking is in the German Yachting Journal “Die Yacht” (Yacht 1939 Heft: 33 Seite: 758, http://www.yachtsportarchiv.de/zeitschrift.htm):

Obviously with this kind of hiking techniques there was no major need for a more ergonomic cockpit design - crew and helmsman were anyway climbing outside and trying to get some grip somewhere at the cockpit board. The crew was accustomed to be, as part of the game, tortured and the captain had anyway a stiff neck trying to keep an eye at least from time to time on the mast top. Probably it was regarded as part of the fun sailing a star and to show off, especially for the ladies ashore.

With the new hiking techniques based on the use of hiking straps (1969) and the hiking vest (1981), getting the crew and helmsman weight over board became much easier and more effective. The appearance of GRP and Epoxi stars changed the ergonomics of the star cockpit significantly and made hiking more comfortable - if hiking is felt comfortable at all.