Paul

The first thing to remember is that you are 20kgs lighter than Doc, so in trapezing conditions and above you are probably going to be slower than him upwind, however you should be much quicker downwind and in 'up to trapezing conditions.

That said you should also be able to set your rig to minimise this.

My first thoughts are that you are probably not pulling hard enough on your mainsheet. It is a problem encountered by most sailors, particularly those who come from dinghies to cats, remember you have no vang on these boats so the leach tension comes from the mainsheet.

Maximum mainsheet tension will be in marginal trapezing conditions when you have little downhaul on, you should be pulling the rope at least as hard as you phisically can with one arm and probably using two for the last bit.

The rig is then set to allow you to do this without pinching or being blown over.

You need to have the maximum power you can hold the boat down with without it being 'twitchy', by twitchy I mean that it sails smoothly without having to move more than a foot of rope in the gusts.

Depending on the wind strength you will start off fully powered up and go through the following sequence to depower untill the boat settles down, all through the depowering sequence the mainsheet tension should remain the same.

Initial setting for marginal trapezing.

No downhaul
Rotator pointing at shroud
Traveller in tight or maybe down 1-2 inches
Mainsheet very, very tight

first pull the downhaul on
when you run out of adustment on this (two hands as hard as you can pull is the end), move to the next adjutment which is

gradually pull the rotator in untill it is pointing at the leeward end of the rear beam, then move to the next adjustment which is

gradually let out the traveller, there is no limit to how far you let this go

remember you must keep the mainsheet tension on althogh in very windy conditions this will be slightly less as the downhal has already bent the mast for you.

In lighter winds the mainsheet tension is reduced to allow the leeeward top telltail to flow.

hope this helps