Height and lowth

For me the best technique when you want height (or depth downwind) is to forget the boats around you.....just sail the wind and waves for your boat, for the pressure that you have in sails at the moment.

DC and I always recognise when we see a group of boats sailing near each other, and the boat to windward (or leeward) starts to dictate the direction of all the other boats in the pack (aka often too high for maximum rig and foil efficiency....maximum VMG).  Non e of the boats will be sailing efficiently, so all are there to have distance taken out of them..!!

Look at the current cover of Y&Y.  The leading boat 7771 could be easily tempted to sail high to "defend" - thus not sailing the pressure that they have in the rig, Assuming that the leg of the course that they are on is a run - and the boats are all taking angles - then the leeward boat should recognise a gust arriving, and confiently recognise that though the higher boats will get the gust first, they will also exit the gust first....which is when the leading boat stretches clear.

Of course, there is a bit of brinkmanship and experience necessary in confidently predicting that the higher boats won't just roll straight through.

Basically what I am saying is sail the pressure and waves, not the competition, and you usually wind up with better VMG.

Also, never wring the neck out of the boat trying to get there.  The moment you squeze too hard, then the rig starts to work less efficiently; then the foils slow a bit; and you begin a cycle of depowering that ends up with a competitor blasting past you, ponting exactly the same direction, but with twice the power in their rig...!!

If you do need to squeeze-up upwind, then do so in small dabs, letting the boat return to its most efficient line before you slow the foils too much, and the rig starts to depower....different for every class..

okay, heres one.

in a laser radial, in big steep chop i cant get the boat to move. sometimes im going along fine and im going over the waves nicely but then one just hits me wrong and i slow down and the boat seems to head up uncontrolably which is very difficult to get back onto course because of the chop and then i have to bear away loads to get back up to speed to start going over the waves again. what am i doing wrong? i think i have the boat flat and everyone else has their kiker right on so why shouldn't i?

"in a laser radial, in big steep chop i cant get the boat to move."

Weird - quote doesn't want to work.

Anyway......I've never sailed a radial but I used to sail a Europe and I suspect you will find the fast guys and girls using a lot of body movement to work the boat through the waves. Try and find some video to study what they are doing, or get onto a RIB one day and watch them. Pointing in waves is a lot to do with boatspeed, because if you are slow you actually go sideways.