Robi, I skimmed the posts and I didn't see this mentioned so I'll add it: Put some tell tales on the leach!! I know Wooter said tie 11/2 feet of ribon but that's way too much. Just get some of the 8" red or green ones available at any sailing store, with the white round sticky patches to hold them on. Put 3 on the leach, one up high, one low and one in the middle.

Then, get out and practice. You want them all to fly straight back, most of the time. Then you can experiment with the down haul, traveler, sheet tension, etc. all day long and you will see the results immediately. When the leach tell tales are not visible, it's becuause they are being blown to the back side of the sail, because the air is not flowing cleanly off the leach, the leach is stalled, and that's slow. Keep them flying most of the time.

There will be times when you have to choose between the tell tales on the front, back and leach of the sail, you won't be able to get them all flowing all the time. In that instance, you always want the ones on the back of the main flowing, always! Next priority is the leach, then the inside near the mast is least priority.

If you constantly try to keep the inside ones, near the mast flying, you will often be oversheeting and stalling the leach, and maybe even the backside of the main, which is REALLY slow.

Also, as the wind builds, DO NOT PINCH!! The more it blows, the more you want to foot off to keep it moving through the chop, and don't worry about the inside forward tell tales too much. You will have to ease the traveler and mainsheet in the gusts, the forward inside tell tales will stall a little, especially if you have the mast rotated, but keep the leach and backside tell tales flying.

But more than anything (messing with prebend, battens, etc...), you must get out and practice so you can see what works and what doesn't. So, get well soon and get out there!!

If you want to drive up to Sebring (two hours?), we can get together on my lake and I'll show you what I'm talking about. Make sure you pick a windy day, maybe we can get Matt and some of the Snakes out too...