Mike, A comment to your original question about sails larger than 150. For a number of years the #75 Ariel raced with a 180 jib. We would carry a 155. What we found was that if there was a long weather leg we would often climb to weather on him gaining distance. We would not see much difference in speed. Where the 75 would eat us up was on a reach that was too tight for a spinnaker. The skipper on the 75 would move the fair lead forward to close off the top of his jib and would go reaching right by us. I would guess he would carry at least an extra .5 – 1 knot of speed on a reach with that 180. Our goal was always try to climb to weather by pointing close hauled and wait and see how long we might be able to hold him off.

One point if anyone out there is a racer and wants to use a sail larger than 155%. Most governing bodies will ding you 3 – 6 seconds a mile on your rating for using a jib larger the 155% .