First of all you need to understand the problem. Two elements comprise pointing: Angle vs. Height. Do you have an angle problem? Angle is when you can visually see your competitor's boat angled closer to the wind than you are. Do you have a height problem? Height is involved when you slowly experience side slippage and you start heading to leeward in relation to the other boats over a period of time.

Both elements are important to achieve better VMG to windward.

Let's talk about Angle. Anyone can move the tiller to leeward and immediately improve the angle. But doing it without coordination of sails and without consideration of wind and wave conditions may cause you to lose speed and stall. This will then have the consequence of leaving only a sideways force and you will end up losing height.

One of the tricks is to cajole the boat into going more to windward during the puffs, and taking bites to windward in stretches of flat water and doing this without slowing the boat down. This takes a lot of concentration and can be done only when the helmsman is concentrating on driving.

In order to keep the boat moving fast as you bring the boat closer to the wind, your sails need to be trimmed appropriately. The leeches of the main and the jib are the main elements of trim that control your pointing ability. Look at the upper leech of your jib, if it is twisted open, it will not point as high as when it is closed up. Move your jib cars forward until the upper and bottom leeches line up. Also sheet in the jib tighter.

The main can be brought in tighter as well. This will hook the upper leech to windward. Now then tighten the backstay. This will open up the leech but do so only until you get the upper telltale flowing about 50% of the time.

Now we get to the height problem, if you start tightening the sheets and the leeches, the boat will have more of a tendency to have a sideways force and this will show up as heeling. The more you heel, the more you will know that you have overdone it. When you heel, you can pretty much expect that you are going sideways and this means that your are losing height. You need to keep the boat flat to control this. And you can do this by flattening your sail further but do not take this too far until you no longer have enough power left to fight the chop.

Finally, you need to consider if your leeches are too tight for the conditions, such as in heavier air. Thus you have to achieve a balance between your attempts at getting a better angle, and preventing a stall of sails or foils, or excessive heel which can affect your height.

By the way, the question of pointing should be of primary concern in medium winds. In light winds, one needs to concentrate less on pointing but first on building boat speed. Once the boat speed has increased, you can then try to point.

Another issue comes up when you are trimming to achieve point are the wave conditions. In light air or in heavy waves, a twist in the sail will be necessary. Again, a balance must be made between sheer pointing angle, and actual height. So the proper sail trim for the conditions will ensure that you do not lose power and stall the sails or the fails and slow down the boat.

One aspect of pointing that is never apparent to a newer racer is that the condition of your sails affect pointing significantly. As sails get older, they have a tendency to get fuller. Thus, when we talk about the flatness of a sail, you will not get full understanding of this if you simply look at the published sailmaker guides and trim your sail according to the conditions specified in these guides. Sailmaker guides are intended for new sails! What you will actually have to do is look at the sail of the faster boats in the fleet in their upwind trim. In particular, look at the stripes and observe the camber of the sail as well as the location of the draft of the sail. An older sail will have a tendency to be deeper (which you will have to correct with more backstay and outhaul), and draft aft (which you will correct with more cunningham. Once you have visualized the correct sail shape for the conditions by comparing against other faster boats, all you have to worry about is duplicating that shape.