YES, YES, and YES again!

I've been sailing boardless cats forever and this is the KEY to pointing high. Every puff that lifts the hull, gently point higher and step forward hard, driving the bows down. Your bows are your boards, not your skegs. If you consider your bows instead of your skegs you will realize a momentary burst of speed and 5 degrees of lift. As the puff/lift fades, be sure to foot off back to the old line, ease weight back again, but do NOT pinch. In fact, you can foot off just before the power fades and you'll scoot like a spit-out watermellon seed! You keep doing this "S" pattern up and forward, then foot and weight-back over and over. NEVER sail casually, always be vigilant of EVERY puff, however tiny, to make up height. You're lacking native lift but can make it up with smart boat handling. The board guys are lazy, they bought their height. You have to earn yours. I love walking over a lazy board boat.

This will not work with angled back bows like a Dart and you'll pitch a Hobie 16 doing it. The more vertical the bows the better. On a SuperCat with bows 30 inches high the effect is dramatic! On my SuperCat 17 I had to add 24 inches to my tiller extension so I could trap far forward of the front beam going up wind solo. Look at the lee bow in my avatar on my Mystere 5.0XL. Bows DOWN.

I just switched to a Nacra 5.0 and sure enough, it works GREAT on this boat, too. Light air or heavy, its the secret sauce!