I tend to leave the sail cleated *, and concentrate hard on keeping both telltales flowing right up to a positive move on the tiller to pass through the wind. I pedal the Miragedrive if the apparent wind is below about 5 knots or above about 15, as during either of these extremes, momentum is too easily lost through the tack.
If you are in a seaway, try and time the tack to just as you pass over the swell, so you gain the benefit of gravity running down the back of the swell while in the tack.
(As an aside, if sailing on a steady course in a swell (ie not tacking), I tend to steer ever so slightly away from close hauled (eg windward telltale steadily streaming) as I climb the face of the swell to keep speed up, and then slightly point up at the top of the swell, and then ease out again on the back, where gravity will help you regain speed).
You are probaby aware of this anyway, but the fastest angle of sail for any mainsheet setting is for the windward telltale to be steady, but slightly higher than parallel to the leeward one. As I wore out mine (250+ trips sp far), I replaced them with port-red and green-starboard to make it easier to identify which is which with a quick glance.
* Cleating off the sail might seem counter-intuitive, but I recall once having a 9 hour dual with a sister yacht under spinnaker in ocean waters. We cleated the spinnaker and concentrated on catching every single wave (gaining speed from about 6 to 12.5 knots while surfing), swapping helmsman every second swell to maintain high concentrtion (we had been racing for over 15 hours already by that stage), while our competitor continually played the sheets to optimise spinnaker shape. It took us 9 hours, but we gained 100 yards on them and beat them home by 50 yards (with sore necks all round LOL)
_________________ Tony Stott 2012 Tandem Island "SIC EM" with Hobie spinnaker
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