Ker-what-itstan? You will not get better weather performance with the old technology. The wing mast provides a much more efficient profile to weather and the current (mylar) sails work better than the H17 sails. I switch back and forth between a-cat and F18 and I think the extra power and complication of the F18 lulls me into pinching. I promise the H17 wasn't better than your F16 to weather - you were just more comfortable with it.

If I might suggest something - for your next regatta, plan to be the guy that foots too much and not the guy that pinches too much. Get a feel for it and bust out of your comfort zone. Be the guy that sails slightly lower than everyone else. You might even be surprised at the result. Perhaps spend a day doing nothing but jib reaching in good breeze and trying to get the speedo as high as possible. I find that the odd points of sail (get a lot of this in distance races), give me a lot of experience to feel that happy zone between good speed and good pointing ability - although I need a reminder every now and then (helpful when sailing with crew). This might help you retune your upwind speed by starting to get the need for bow sizzle. Pinchers are in a safe comfort zone and have to forfeit that "safe" feeling and start sailing deeper. Footers just need to learn to refine their upwind approach.If you're a footer, learning to sail higher is much easier than a pincher learning to foot.

For some reason, I had to really fight the urge to pinch upwind since I got back into F18 recently. I did what I prescribed above and decided to just experiment for one regatta. I was the guy that footed that weekend and, though we had several mechanical failures on the (new to me) boat, we were getting to A-mark 30 to 50 yards in front of the entire fleet (when the boat held together). I was footing mad in good breeze and sheeting till it bleeds. I was astonished. Go the bow sizzle.