How do I use the staysail?

[lnomsim]

I tried to replace the lanteen with a gaff and a dhow jib, but while I could leave the harbour without any issues, I soon found out I had actually no idea how to use those sails.

I had assumed the gaff would be used the exact same way the lanteen would, but the staysail deviates my ship a lot, I can never maintain my direction.

And worse, after two days at sea, I keep getting pushed back to gold rock city. Sometimes, my sails are definitely taking the wind, but it feels like the ship isn't moving at all.

Sometimes it feels like I'm in an out-of-control speedboat, and two seconds later, I'll be still or even moving backwards.

[Odoty]

If you could provide us with screenshots, that might help, or post in #help on Discord
It may be that one of your sails is much bigger than the other, unbalancing your boat, it may be that you are flying the jib on the wrong side (I have taught kids that would not/could not put it on the right side)

[lnomsim]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2902891516
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2902891478
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2902892007

Well, until I took those screenshot I was actually making some good progress, but when taking the shot I noticed I had stopped.

[Odoty]

Are all those taken at the same time? In the middle one, it looks like the jib is on the wrong side, but it's ok in the other 2

Which way are you finding the boat turns? Looking at the amount of sail and where it is sat on your boat, it is very far forward, so is your boat turning away from the wind a lot?

In the 3rd picture, you can see the gaff is further out than the jib, and looking at the flag on top, may not be doing anything at all. If your boat is turning down, you'll want the gaff in tight, and the jib looser.

Finally you are sailing very very close to the wind; most real boats can do 40-45 degrees, the stock cog in Aestrin is more like 60 degrees, your bottom picture looks about 5-10 degrees. If you want to go upwind, you do have to do the zigging and the zagging

[lnomsim]

Yeah, unfortunatay, as I said, the ship keeps turning on its own, so it's hard to take a screenshot where I am actually sailing in the best conditions.

When I began taking the shots, all was fine, the time it took to adjust the sail, the ship has done almost an entire 180°

some other shots:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2902895855
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2902895817
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2902895786
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2902895743

This time, the gaff is almost straight because I didn't want to lose time and risk going off course by adjusting it all the time, I prefer to go slow than lose 10mins each time the ship finds itself upwind.

"Are all those taken at the same time? In the middle one, it looks like the jib is on the wrong side, but it's ok in the other 2"

What do you mean by that? How can it be on the wrong side?

if the wind comes from the portboard, I loosen on the portboard and straighten on the starboard, and vice versa.

All in all, I try to keep it in the same orientation as the gaff.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2902908417

I managed to reach my destination eventually, and almost in time, it just took me half a day more than it would have with the lanteen, so I guess what I'm doing isn't that wrong.
Most of the time I lost was by fighting the course changing by itself.

So, if the wind blows from portboard, the ship deviates starboard, and vice versa.

I have to adjust the wheel by ~20° at all time to stay on course.

And I have no choice to sail so close to the wind, I need to go south. The wind comes from the south. But between SE and SW I have almost no wind so if want to reach my destination, I don't have too much choice bu sail ESE or WSW.

And that's where the weird thing is, for all night, I sailed WSW, and when the sun rose, I found myself way too much East from where I was supposed to be. I was closer to Albacore Town than I was from Alchemist's Island.

In the time it took to take the first batch of screenshots, I was "back" to Gold Rock, I could see the textures on the rocks and the other islands were nowhere to be seen.

So I guess when I went to sleep during the night, the ship simply made circles.

[Odoty]

I think there's a few things going on here
Firstly I think your jib is too powerful, it is so big and so far forwards, it is turning your boat away from the wind. Imagine the wind being a hand pushing on each sail, the hand on the jib will just keep pushing the boat round, and the hand on the gaff isn't big enough to stop it
This is my cog that I sailed from Aestrin to Emerald, and you can see the jib and gaff are equal sizes, and in the middle of the boat, so when they're both powered up, neither of them is "winning" over the other
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2010325344027221240/F7D0DDB97D700298B7A13BA5C29A96978D97C0B4/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

Secondly I think your jib is too tight in. If you can make out the blue flag on top of my mast, you can see where the wind is coming from, and where my sails are
Notice how my port sheet is tight, and starboard sheet is slack. If I pull my jib to the middle of the boat, that hand on the sail is now pushing my boat backwards, making me stop, and this is actually called "heaving to"
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2010325344027221379/6677B7EBB57C4FC2B4D2E61F132B5A9C21F026FF/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2010325344027221499/804EA504B7F36BAED9DB33B29FAB3409AFC5B494/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

[lnomsim]

thanks, that was it, I managed to some other routes without any issues.
But I just lost everything in a storm, the ship took too much water and sank.

[JPL 1138]

You don't absolutely need the jib to be the same size as the mainsail on a sloop rig, but you DO have to keep in mind that, if it isn't, you will need to trim your sails accordingly.

So for example I also sail the cog as a sloop, but I've rigged her with the large 10 yard mainsail and large genoa jib.

A lot of the time I will sail with my jib MUCH tighter than my mainsail to keep the forces balanced.

One thing to keep in mind is that the more forward of the keel the jib, the more leverage it has to push your boat away from the wind. Because the mast of the dhow is well forward and it has a pretty long bowsprit for the stay sails, it's easy to over balance your foresail. One way of dealing with this is to 'cutter rig' the dhow and give her two fore stay sails. With two stay sails you can 'step' their angle with the outer jib loser than the inner. By fine-tuning two jibs you can find the best angle of lift that balances against your main sail.

Whenever you find your boat being pushed away from the wind either loosen up on the jib(s), or tighten up on you main, or both.

[shiremaus]

On a sloop rig (which is more or less what you have there) when sailing upwind, the primary function of the forward sail (jib/stay sail) is to direct anf funnel te wind over the forward surface of the main. If you imagine your main sail a wing on an aircraft, it's the wind traveling over the curved surface that creates lift (in the forward direction) and causes the boat to move. Adding another sail gives you an additional wing to sail with but it also creates a wind tunnel between the two that essentially makes that wind slightly faster (generating more lift) and can redirect the wind, allowing you to sail (or 'pinch') closer to directly into the wind.
As a general rule, when sailing upwind, the sail furthest aft will be pulled in closest to paralell with the hull while sails going forward will be let out further and further in order to capitalize on this wind tunnel effect.
You can hold course with your sails, at the expense of a bit of speed, by trimming them with the main a bit tighter than it should and the jib a bit loose, considering the point of sail. The wind in the main will nudge the bow into the wind to catch more in the jib and push it out again. Done correctly, the boat will wobble a few degrees but will generally hold course, given a steady wind.