The wind calmed down to around 8-10 mph on Sunday and I sailed without incident and flew the spin in each race. My personal experience this weekend can confirm that the most damage/uncontrollable attitude comes when going from depowered to fully powered in a very short time (spin filling and trying to accellerate from a dead stop). Flogging also relates to this, as Wouter said, it can get hairy VERY fast when the spin is filling-collapsing-filling-etc.

Consistent effort from the spin seems to be the best way to go - IF I can just figure out how to manage it. I tend to pull the trigger on bearing off too quickly - just need some practice. It'll probably become fluent like sailing upwind and pinching up in the puffs (hopefully).