My approach is the remind my crew to remind me to stay patient. At that point, it's too early to start taking gigantic gambles.
Minimize damage by footing or pinching a little into a lane or, in the case where I'm stuck between two boats, I'll try to make it uncomfortable for the guy that I can reach and make HIM want to check out (if I can get him to wonder "what the hell is wrong with this guy?", I've done my job). We tend to be on the heavy side so boat speed in moderate breeze isn't an asset that we can claim title to. This plays into this situation pretty heavily.

I don't usually hit the "run away" button unless it's absolutely terrible (practically sitting in last place already) or I had previously identified that I wanted to be on the opposite side of the course anyway...but, that said, if the opposite side is favored, its usually not the case that I'm the only one to have figured that out - so lanes will start opening up as people start to tack over.