Short-tacking along the side of a channel would be great in a Laser. With a Wave every time I tacked I think I lost everything I had gained, because I was going backward (relative to land) through the slow part of the tack. So it seemed important to limit the number of tacks.

Also, I seemed to go into irons a lot during tacks and also while parking and trying to start up from a stopped position, and I attributed this to the current effect. Rick says it was because of wind shifts. But from what somebody said above in this thread, I am wondering whether the "wind shifts" were actually because of the changes in "apparent wind" induced by current.

Anyway, I am more interested in practical approaches to dealing with current rather than theory and physics and diagrams and vectors and all that.

This is the kind of question that makes me really miss Carlton Tucker. He would have simple, understandable answers to my questions of how to deal with current in various scenarios -- in the real world, not on paper. I don't care about theory; I care about how to best get from Point A to Point B when current is involved.