In "Catamaran Sailing From Start to Finish", they say that when sailing to weather you can sail too close to the wind - "pinching" and it is the fastest course to sail a little off the wind - "in the groove" without falling off too much - "footing". But in another part of the book it says that when you are sailing closehauled and you are sheeted in as far as you can go, to point up until the jib starts to luff and then fall off until it fills in and this is the correct course for sailing hard to weather. My question is: Following the second method, when the jib fills in, are you now "pinching" or "in the groove"?

As mentioned previously, I'm relatively new to sailing, so I'm sorry if the answer is obvious.

I sail by the tell-tales on the Jib. When both tell tales flow nicely that normally coincides with the 'groove" I pinch a little when sailing solo in winds that are too much and tend to 'foot' a little when winds are lighter and there is no increased risk of tipping.

When racing there are time when it pays to point and sometimes you will want to foot. You must understand that it is the mainsail that powers the boat to weather, the jib is secondary and that is how it should be trimmed. The trimming of the sails must be according to the weather conditions, the travelers play a big role. Catamarans go best to weather with boat speed, foot off a little and let the speed bring you up, trying to sail in a straight line to weather normally does not work well. When and if you pinch to high and stall the boat, you are loosing speed and loosing ground to leeward. The technique is kind of like scalloping to weather, foot off for speed, come up, foot off again, come up again. You will always go to weather better with boatspeed.
There is a great book "WELCOME TO A-FLEET" By JACK SAMMONS. It will explain, lifts, headers, the velocity kidney, lift, drag etc. I read this book 30 years ago and it totally changed the way I sailed. I went from the back of the fleet to winning in about 18 months.
Next to time on the water, reading is almost as if not more important.

thats classic multimatt am reading same book new to cats but had multi fever for years thought corsair was going to be my ticket to freedom turns out its 5.2 for now ripping around lake piru ca weekday afternoons anyone interested give me a call 805-625-1049 headed to santa barbara this weekend to try and crew or just look at other rigging set-ups first time posting so please excuse the rambling and thanks to this community for all the info and pics couldnt have put nacra back together without it multifever forever