Hi Neil. I sail predominantly inland which will likely affect any advice I can give, however, I do sail a fair amount of W/L at my club. For me the trick is 2 fold, gauging the wind and having the boat set correctly. In light wind I sail at quite shallow angles, the extra distance of a tighter angle doesn't seem to be made up by the increase in speed. In heavy wind it depends how brave I feel. Dead downwind in a blow can be fast, but I find it hard to keep the boat stable. Often I take a skiff approach, bang in as few gybes as possible. It also depends how consistent the wind is, I often work hard to keep the boat in the best pressure, which means sailing all kinds of angles just to get into the breeze. Its a balancing act that I am still learning to be honest.
My greatest single improvement was making sure I had the rig tensions set right - though granted this was in a boat with fixed lowers. Keep the mast straight and lower tension on to reduce de-powering downwind. When I had fixed lowers, I had them set too loose to allow for upwind speed, but putting the rig tension back on wasn't tensioning the lowers enough downwind. Obviously if you have adjustable lowers that's easy to fix. If not, its just balancing upwind and downwind tensions. Hope that helps!
