upwind angle of AI?

Det, interestingly, you were still managing to sail at 60 to 68 degrees to the wind in those adverse conditions, versus 50 degrees in the lighter winds:

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Reconlon / Bob, I did try sailing close hauled with both dagger and drive (flippers straight down), and that seemed to work: I could point higher. The conditions were very light though, and the "speed" dropped from roughly 7 km/h (with drive out, plug in dagger down) to roughly 5.5 km/h.
After a few tries, and without doing the math in the field (and even now), I decided to point lower and without the drive, for that was more fun to me. I think I will try it again with more wind (and without jib). Then the speed drop might be (or at least feel) less dramatic.

@okz00k, do you know if you assist your sailing (fi in the 30kt wind) with pedaling? That would be very helpful for me to interpret your track.

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skua

For the northerly tacks in medium winds I did not assist except during the tack transition. For the southerly tacks into the 30+ kts I was peddling as well. Note that I could make no headway windward peddling at max with the sail furled. I could only make windward headway sailing with approx 1m (1 yard) of sail out.

That's been exactly my experience in winds that strong.

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Thanks for the clarifications, that makes sense and is also in agreement with my experiences (although they go "only" up to 30kts, which I consider enough...)

I wonder if making headway windward in high winds would go better with the small sail on a (stiffened) mast: that way you don't need to furl (so much), so the sail shape should be better. Obviously, the other factors that hinder windward headway stay unaffected, so it might not help that much, but I think it could be an interesting experiment. Anyone tried yet?

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skua