The latest America's Cup catamarans sailed faster than the wind both upwind and downwind and that's even more counter intuitive. You probably saw them in the news. Explanation at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_faster_than_the_wind
tl,dr: it's not the real wind that matters but the apparent wind (the self made one you feel when riding a bike) so if build up enough speed you'll always be sailing upwind and build up even more power.
This is an even faster boat, build for speed records http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnjyusAgk8I