Jerry,

Wind speed, boat speed, wave height, wave speed, wave steepness, boat type, spinnaker vs no spinnaker, etc all come into play in a very complex way. Basically, when you get out in the waves you try to surf as much as possible, at the same time trying to get to where you want to go. Lots of ways to sail over the next wave; yes you've got to power up to do so since you're going uphill and/or punching through.

With a little time on the water in some good waves you can get the hang of it very rapidly. It becomes more of a feel thing once you're used to it. You find yourself automatically steering through the waves.

I first learned to sail in waves on my family's Catalina 27 sailing in and out of SF Bay and down to my hometown of Half Moon Bay. In the Bay you get short square waves close together; outside the Gate in the open ocean you can get some huge rollers--you can be 100 yards from another boat and only see the top of their mast if you're both in troughs. On a keelboat like the Catalina, you can never hold the wave for long and are always rounded up by it. So you just get in a rhythm after sailing downwind/downwaves for a couple hours. But driving a planing monohull or catamaran is much more thrilling because you can catch the waves. Lasers do it, TP 52s do it, and we can do it.