I sailed in Santa Barbara a few months back @ Wine & Roses, the winds were pretty steady 15mph and unidirectional.
I just missed you. I sail in SB almost every weekend of the year, but had to be out of town that weekend.
Up the hull would go and by the time that I was able to attempt to turn down, the rudders were deep sixing the bows.
Should the crew be sheeting out more to get the spin to power up without me needing to turn up so far?
You need to keep the boat moving fast and you need to head up and down in phase with the wind. I suspect you were out of phase. You need to be sailing deep, not heading down, when the gust hits and sailing high, not heading up, when the lull hits. Its all about anticipation. Get your head out of the boat looking at the wind.
Something that is likely unique about ocean to you are the long period waves. Frequently in SB the waves play a larger part in powering up and down the boat than the wind. Because the waves are fairly periodic, it is easy to anticipate what will happen next. Again, you need to have your head out of the boat looking at the waves / wind.
Second, you need to not slow down. Because the center of gravity is above the water, the act of turning toward the direction that the boat is healed will level it off. This is the same effect that keeps a bicycle balanced. Going twice as fast make the effect four times larger because the force goes up with the square of speed.
Don't head down too hard. The rudders will create drag and it won't be as fast of an angle. Keep the spinnaker trimmed. You are correct, your crew should let out the spinnaker any time the hull comes down. It might be frustrating at first because the boat will accelerate, the apparent wind will come forward and the spinnaker will try to collapse. Again, the crew has to anticipate this. When the crew feels the boat accelerate, they need to be ready to sheet back in.
