I was easily faster than they were in this situation. I had enough wind on a beam reach to not have to worry about hoisting any more canvas. I pulled up on them, settled down long enough to ready my camera, then got going at speed again. After snapping a few pictures from behind, I sheeted in and easily passed them to windward.
Once ahead, I eased off a bit so that I could get some front shots. Then I allowed myself to fall back into her lee where I took another picture. After that I had no trouble at all in squirting out of their shadow and leaving them in my wake.
This was the second outing for the new owner in this boat and the first time with the boat "heated up." Even so, they had lots of options that could have improved their performance such as three larger sizes of Jibs, Larger Main, Asymmetric Spinnaker on a 25 foot long extending bow pole, and Eight Trapezes per side which would have allowed trapezing off of the racks that they were just sitting on.
They were cruising at about 14 knots and squirting ahead in bursts of about 17 or 18 knots during gusts or wave face runs. I was doing about 15 and my bursts may or may not have been any faster than theirs were but, I was able to hold on to the increased apparent wind for longer periods of time and just leave them behind as they slowed back to cruising speed.
The blue head sail that you saw furled is a small Hooter style set up. It is quite small and is nice for either single handing broad reaching (small, since I am already over-canvased) or sailing to weather in very light air. It is like a mini Hooter. I call it "a Chuter; A Hooter, only cuter."
It is on a roller furler mounted to my 13' spin. pole and hoisted on my spin. halyard. The foot is only about 14 feet and is lead and sheeted in what used to be my barber hauler tackle on the front cross bar. When trimmed on a medium reach, the clew flies right about adjacent to the jib's tack so I get good breathing through the sail slots with little overlap.
On a light day, it can double my upwind boat speed and it came in very handy when I did some voyages to Channel Islands National Park when in the middle of the day we had wind in the 4-5 knot range.
