I have the cleat set up like Trey, sailing out of hand is in my opinion better than cleated which causes you steer more (especially when the breeze is gusty) and that is slow.
Smooth steering is very important. When sailing upwind you should be sheeted in as hard as possible, if you cannot then you do not have enough cunningham on. If you sheet out instead of using the cunningham you will not not be able to point as well as you could. At some point you cannot pull on the cunningham anymore and then you have to sheet out and bring in the rotation. Above 12 knots I have about 30° rotation. If you are racing ALWAYS try and sail in clear air, I would rather have a slightly worse start and have clear air than sit in someones exhaust for 5 minutes till I can finally tack away into clear breeze. Move forward and back on the trapeze to keep the boats trim optimal, I move about 30 to 40cm depending on the wind strength and waves. Downwind in marginal conditions is always difficult. "when in doubt, go deep" . You see people losing a lot of ground trying to go wild when the first boat with a lightweight skipper onboard gets a hull up and everyone else feels the pressure to follow suite. Here is an excellent article by Andrew Landenberger on sail/mast setup and design. I had to read it a few times, but the penny has dropped and it is very good to understand the relationship between mast and sail on an A Cat. http://www.landenberger-sailing.com/spip.php?article21

Good boatspeed will make you look like a tactical genius

regards fron Zurich

Daniel
SUI 198