If this is a true statement then sailing a Hobie 16 without a jib in say 5+ beaufort winds (=overpowered) should be faster then a similar crew sailing the sloop H16 in the same conditions.

I know you sail Hobie 16's Hakan, so don't take my word for it and just try this one time. And that goes for everybody out there. Just try it yourself. You'll all see for yourself what happens in real life.

With respect to A-cats, I have the exact opposite opinion :

An jib added A-cat in 1 bft will not show significantly improved speed in any way. This is because of the way the wind is made up at these low speeds, laminair flow patterns. In effect the range of height were the jib is there is simply very little energy (windspeed) that can be harvested. OVer 2bft the winds switch to a turbulant make-up and energize the layers much closer to the watersurface, now the jib will start pulling and add performance to the whole boat. In big winds all the depowering is done by losing drive high up in the rig which means that the top of the mainsail is switched off. The jib will in these conditions just continue pulling at full throttle because its heeling leverage is so small that it is pointless to depower it. The fact that at big winds the leech of the jib is adjusted as well is the result of the mainsail trim having been altered and the arrive back at the optimal interaction one has to adjust the trim of the jib accordingly.

Wouter