I have been sailing a 16 for several years and have explored this question through trial and error. True, loosening the halyard kills your ability to get up wind; this only happens when your forestay, not your jib forestay, starts to take the load that your mainsheet puts on your rigging.



I think that I get best performance out of my boat by running lots of halyard tension at all times. We are a heavy weight crew, and I do not want my mast to rake any further back in higher winds. I basically set my mast rake and keep it there. Loosening your jib halyard lets your mast fall back until the forestay takes over.



I have found that my boat performs much better to keep my rigging tight, and travel out with both my jib and main systems, keep your sails sheeted tight. If you are being overpowered, travel out a little more. This doesn't seem to hurt my ability to point with the other boats. When I was loosening my jib halyard, I could go fast but way low of the other boats.



David



I have never sailed SF Bay, but we do have some extreme winds in West Texas. We had force 9 winds in an April Regatta; I flipped twice in the first race; tightened my jib halyard for the subsequent races, my boat settled down, and we sailed much better races, without flipping....yea!