The formula to height

It's different for every boat so look at the CA tuning guides and tips from their top sailors. But, for detailed, non class specific advice buy a copy each of "Start To Win" by Eric Twiname and "Expert Dinghy Racing" by Paul Elvstrom.

Edited by Sam.Spoons - 28 Aug 18 at 10:00pm

And spot the lifts.

anything which narrow the angle of attack is good, but the trade off is that many of these things also move the draft further back, close the slot and hook the leech. This stops the air leaving the aft of the rig efficiently, and chokes the sail, which will harm pointing (and massively speed). 

Edited by mozzy - 29 Aug 18 at 6:55pm

My favourite answer to "how can I point higher?" is "buy a longer tiller extension"

There's an old saying, where the head goes the body follows and until I once followed a really good lass in a Europe up a beat and then realised that there is no difference between the way I sail a board and the correct way to sail a dinghy, I didn't think it applied.
But whoever back there said about feel, that's the answer and even for someone like me who lives by feel, on sail craft, no tel tales, no little flag thing on top of the mast, it take a while to bed into a boat they are so much deader by comparison to real sailing on boards.

But having said that, twist the upper half of your body and look upwind at the same time as loosening the grip on the wiggle thing and let the boat 'hunt' for you, works wonders. Providing of course you have a well set up boat that isn't all weather helm like my little sailing joy the Solution. The Alto was equally good as I imagine would be a 505, and surprisingly if you could stop it rocking and rolling that RS200 was nicely balanced and not bad at all upwind. Now my little Mini sprint will point like a demon - and then slip sideways because it has a crap centreboard, so you have to dig the rail of the boat in a bit to try and stop that. Neither did I rate the Blaze in light weather, always thought it was under foiled,now a Phantom.. just sit there and enjoy your pies, it does all the work. Moral of the tale, they are all different but You have to learn first so you can tell the difference and that's taken me the best part of ten years.. And now I've got a boat which if you point it you die (Farr 3.7)so you have to foot it off, sail under the damned Lasers, let some speed build then the foils do the work and if there's not enough wind to get on the wire - sail something else.

Edited by iGRF - 29 Aug 18 at 4:31pm