one of the great challenges of this race is to understand far you can push your boat without breaking her or you.
i am finding the experience from my first shtp to be invaluable in this regard. i am much more comfortable with how the boat will perform in various conditions and this gives me a little more mental space to optimize and experiment with various configurations.
i look back and wonder why i did or did not do certain things and realize i was just set up with a pair of training wheels the last race.