You can still learn a lot with the
boat you have.
I've had my 27' sailboat for 7 years and raced 4 different beach cats for 15 years before
buying that
boat and I'm still
learning the boat I have now, but I am now sailing in a place where the
wind, sea,
current, and tide are much stronger than when I sailed the beach cats in Tennessee and Florida/Mississippi
Gulf Coast
As was mentioned, you can
race or just sail in stronger winds. I had to reef for the first time all year on Sunday while
day sailing and that was quite interesting.
It was nice to see the boat come back to an easily controlled situation after reefing the main and
furling the
jib in a bit
You could
work on/set up a simple
self steering system like Webb Chiles uses. He is/was sailing RTW on a 24'
racing boat (Moore 24). Looks like your O'Day 22 is heavier than the Moore 24 by 600 lbs
https://www.cruisingworld.com/simple-self-steering
You could sail as if you have no
engine all the way out and back in.