Hey, don't give up on pointing high with a boardless boat. I sail solo in a shallow area with a LOT of boardless boats and lots of skilled sailors sailing them. Experience will teach you how to make your boat point high. Hans Geisler will can outpoint most any boat on his old GCat 5 meter because he sails it correctly.

I've owned a Prindle-16, SuperCat 17 and a Mystere 5.0. Each hull is boardless but each is RADICALLY different in how it’s hull is cut and how it gets the job done. Each requires a VERY different touch to make them point high. On each boat it took me nearly a year to have some magic moment, some lightning bolt from Neptune, where I discovered the ever-so-subtle trick for pointing high on that particular boat. I can say with some certainty that I now can point as high as any boardless boat and as high as most board boats sailed by "average" sailors.

What is the trick? Relentless attention to weight placement to point high without pinching. EVERY wind shift, every lift, every head, you must adjust weight position. Move FORWARD and I mean WAY forward to point. Stop adjusting the sail and start adjusting your weight. On the SuperCat I lived with one foot forward of the front beam. I'm solo remember. The Mystere was the most rewarding for performance gains due to weight balance and it’s just like your N5.0 (skegs). With the slightest lift you sheet IN on a puff and slide forward, trap low, and drive the bows down, down, down while steering the boat up, up, up. Do NOT chicken out and sheet out on puffs. Anticipate the lifts or puffs and move forward early. Rookies always sit back and show their bows. Instead, bury the bow and show everyone your transom. Of course, you’ll get killed doing this on a Hobie 16.

Foot off? No...I gave that up. You only need that because you killed your speed avoiding a lift/puff. Footing is speed in the wrong direction. Footing and/or sheeting out is like a rookie skiing. When learning to ski, you foolishly turn up the hill to slow down, reducing power and killing speed. Recovery is slow and you’re going across the hill, not down. Then one day you’ll learn that it is the TURN ITSELF that slows you down, regardless of direction. Now you turn hard DOWN the hill to slow down, directly into the power! Now when you ski you turn down the STEEPEST part of the hill to slow down. The power is increasing when your speed momentarily decreases. When you ease up on the turn, acceleration is instantaneous, fierce, hot! Same in surfing…stall in the pocket, then punch it to go like hell. Like a flywheel…store it up for later release.

Upwind, it’s like wild thing downwind. NEVER lose speed, drive into power, not away. When the wind blows, go right at it, go after it, point high, bear away slightly, and point up again. Squeeze the lemon…

Sorry, I’m getting all excited. Nipples hard, the whole deal. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> Time to go sailing!

Anyway, point high.
Sail fast, take chances, safety third.