Just to pile on here, and support what Chris says, check out this vid from Quantum showing how they sail their TP52 upwind.
http://www.quantumsails.com/ This is in a pretty big breeze and about 3 minutes into the vid, note the main breathing and the top battens inverting. Is this slow? I dont think so...Quantum just won the Audi MedCup Circuit in what is undoubtedly the most competitive European (if not the world) big boat one design fleet. anyway, cool vid - turn the sound down if you are not a Ledd Zepp fan! tf >When the wind pipes up and we > are > unable to change out the headsails we just dump the main and let the jib > power > the boat. If we can change out the headsail the vast majority of the > boats > will change to a 135-140 and keep the full main in place. Again just > dump the > main and let the headsail power the boat. This is a Chesapeake Bay set > up > where we rarely experience more than 20 other than in storms and they are > usually short lived.
