The variables... Wind & boat speed are difficult to determin with out tools... Anemometer and GPS can be helpful to make that stuff more measurable. While you will find a couple of GPS's that would work o.k. for cat sailing... measuring true wind speed on a boat is not really possible.

Pointing... Pointing or improving the ability of your cat to point is quiet important. Hobie 16's with asymetric hulls and the lack of lateral surface (daggerboard) perform particularly poorly in that category.
Raking the mast back will improve your pointing abilities. Raking the mast back is limited by your cat's main sheet system, the mastbase, and the way the jib is cut. Even with a good amount of mast rake your pointing abilities will be far less than that of a average monohull. From on tack to the other I meassure more like 120* (that angle could be in the range of 90*)
Mast rake has some other undesirable side effect... while moving the center of effort further back you cat will pull more towards weather. You can compensate for that with the helm - causing drag. Rudder rake adjustment can be helpful if this is available on your Hobie - the drag remains - just feels better on the helm.

As Jim mentioned befor... it is a trade off - power vs. pointing