I have a question regarding sailing uni. I did a race last weekend where the wind was forecast to be 2-5 knots early then building to 12-15. I decided to sail uni thinking I would have a weight advantage. I have a couple of observations and wonder if any of you have experienced the same. 1-My main competition was an FX-one sailing sloop rigged with no spin. He had about 260lbs on board. I found that I couldn't stay with him upwind in the light air (10knots). Does the jib make that much of a difference on this boat? 2-I had some helm going upwind. My mast rake follows Matt's recommendations for the trapwire method. I was in the wire (~12knots) and had the boat well balanced fore/aft. It felt as if one of my rudders was up an inch. I hadn't noticed this sailing uni before. 3-When I went off on a reach with the wind in the 15 knot range I was keeping pace with a Supercat 19 but I kept climbing to windward. I felt like I was fighting the boards with the rudders. My guess is that I should've come out of the wire and brought the boards up. 3-On one of my spinnaker douses I wasn't off the wind enough and got a wrap on the port bow. I backed the boat up, doused the chute and went on my way. But-lets say you had to drop the chute and couldn't bear off because you were running out of water. Could you drop it successfully if you first blew the halyard, pulled in what you could, then released the tack line and sheet? I've done this successfully on a J-22 and thought it would work on the Blade. Thanks for your input. Greg