I heard of a particularly good skipper sailing the Inter 17R who cleated the spinnaker sheet and "pumped" the main (not sure if he pumped the sheet or traveller) to keep the boat going fast. I haven't found this easy to do.
I am about to adopt the cleating Spi Sheets on my Inter 17 Euro. to allow me to play with the mainsheet tension and Traveller as required.
I think I will probably adopt the following:
Always (except for very short periods) have the Tiller in my Aft hand.
Cleat Spi sheets to allow changes to mainsail sheet or traveller only.
I currently believe that you will have more gain by playing the Kite Sheets to achieve VMG on a dead run.
I also believe that when trying to make a mark on a tight(er) reach the only way to gain hight is to dump the traveller.
My 2 penny worth anyway....
