If you have a wind indicator on the boat, take it off, and learn to sail the boat by feel, so you can watch the water for gusts. You can see a gust coming, almost always, and know whether you will be on the header, or lift side of it. In a light monohull, you can tack before the header side gets to you, but you need to know a lot sooner than that in a cat. In racing any kind of boat, when I have never raced against them before, I know not to worry about the ones with wind indicators.
We talked about speed before, but the most important part of speed is getting the most out of the wind. It doesn't matter if you are getting the last possible tenth of a knot out of the boat, if you're going the wrong way, or up on edge.
In the Prosail racing series, back in the '80's, there was not one wind indicator on any of the 21's sitting on the beach on the weekends. The first couple of years there were qualifying races on Friday, and the races for money were on the weekend. After the first couple of years, the same top 20 always made the weekend show, and there was no longer any need for qualifying races, because anyone else stopped showing up.
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