Take away an important lesson from this experience. Now you know that the extra gears exist and that the only issue is to find the right trim to unlease it. This thing is impossible to explain to any new (or would be) F16 sailor. You just have to experience it yourself to believe it. But an important experience it is. Now you know how much difference a small adjustment can make, now you know what to look for. You are about to scale the mental barrier where the thing that is holding you back is not the sailing conditions or boat design but your mind that doesn't believe more speed is possible. Now your mind knows better and a new area of performance is opening up to you. Remember this always.

But it is great fun having this "Ohhh my God" experience isn't it ? Had mine about a year ago, during a strong wind distance race. I still remember the thrills and chills.

Okay now remember to write down what you exactly did before the turbo chargers kicked-in. Over time these notes will compose a complete game plan for varying conditions and you'll learn to completely understand the rig.

If you are up to it, try to learn the aerodynamics that explain these phenomena as well. These will really help you to form all these individual experiences into one big theory that you can use to "remember" what to do under varying or even new conditions. It will also aid you very much in optimizing the tuning of your rig (prebend, spreader rake, mast rake, stay tension etc).

One important thing to note is that when you accellerate or decellerate that you often must adjust the trim and sheeting as well as steer to keep the rig in its optimal settings. Things like apparent wind and windforce change significantly when accellerating and decellerating. Compensate for it proportionally. Things like release sheet tension when in the middle of the tack to speed up faster and sooner. These things will again allow you to find better performance on top of what you discovered just now.

Yep the learning curve is probably several years long ! So enough stuff to keep you occupied and enjoying yourself in the future.

You've been initiated with the F16 feeling (Bug)

Welcome to the club !

Wouter