Sailing with or without a kite?

Following is without the kite as you will get heaps of long notes about kite sailing.

Jib is the key. Barber the jib sheet so that 4 to 6 inches is showing out of the beam. Crew should be pulling on the jib on so that it isn't too tight. This should then set your angle to steer to. As the wind comes forward the jib can be pulled on tighter, reverse when lighter. So not a set and forget job. The other key part is that the crew should be monitoring the bows. If they start to go under, an ease of 4 to 6 inches should take the pressure off, and then sheet back in.

For main. Rotation and downhaul off. Can ease the outhaul a bit too. If you are going flat, then traveller down so just inside the hull. If wild, then at the hiking strap. Also should be working the main in the pressure. As I mention quite a bit here, never cleat the main, need to react to gusts and that extra time to try and uncleat can be slow. Also watch your main trim. Gotta keep the leech fairly tight. Leech telltales help for trim.

Crew should be sitting to leeward. Forward when light, and moving back as it gets windier.

Skipper should be on the tramp on windward side. I say tramp as the boat pitchpoles slightly less as your weight is dispersed along a soft tramp rather than a hard and direct hull (the engineers here will prob cut this to bits, but 5 yrs of going wild on a Taipan, this was faster and caused less pitchpoling - verification was amount of crew complaints).

That should get you started and help to beat the hobies.