Tips

This is just a list of useful info I have found while playing, that I thought would be nice to know from the beginning. If you would rather figure this stuff out while playing, which is more fun for some people, come back after getting some playtime in to learn what you missed.

General tips

The compass works from the inventory, and is visible even at night. The steering wheel is usable while doing this.

Fishing
The fishing pole is usable during any task, meaning you can cast, then trim the sails or set your course, if you catch something, the pole will turn in your hands.

The Spyglass
I took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that you need to scroll to zoom with the Spyglass.

The North Star
If the navigation guide confused you, just remember that the north star is the second star in a short chain of four, with the fourth being furthest from the others.

Tacking
If you were too lazy to look up the Wikipedia article on tacking, here is the link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacking_(sailing)#The_need_for_tacking
And here is a small snippet I thought was important, even if you already know how to tack.
"Favorable tacks "lifts" and "headers"
When beating to windward, often your desired destination although still in the no sail zone, is not aligned directly upwind - to the eye of the wind. In this case one tack becomes more favorable than the other - it angles more closely in the direction you wish to travel than the other tack does. Then the best strategy is to stay on this favorable tack as much as possible, and shorten the time you need to sail on the unfavorable tack. This will result in a faster passage with less wasted effort. Your overall course then is not an equal zig-zag as in the diagrams above, but more of a saw tooth pattern. If while on this tack the wind shifts in your favor, called a "lift," and allows you to point up even more, so much the better, then this tack is even more favorable. But if the wind shifts against you and makes you fall off, called a "header," then the opposite tack may become the more favorable course."
Not my words, check the link above for the rest of the article.

Weight Management

When your ship begins to list, especially during storms, you can move cargo to either side of the ship to change the center of mass. Most of the time this isn't necessary, but if full sail is making you take on water, this allows you to stay full sail in rough weather. Depending on how much cargo you have, its very possible to over do it. I've found a single crate of copper does the job perfectly.
Remember not to overload the boat, its very possible to make the boat sit low in the water, making it susceptible to storms.

The Aestrin Ship

The Aestrin ship has has a few advantages and disadvantages. It's biggest problem being the inability to use both sails in the close position, resulting in slow speeds going upwind. The main sail only produces thrust a little more than halfway between the close and beam reach positions, because the sail can only rotate 45 degrees to port and starboard.


In the image you can see the weather vane has metal prongs indicating the max rotation of the main sail. Combined with the metal wind indicator this makes it much easier to tell if the main sail would catch any wind. This is useful because the main sail takes forever to rotate.





Reversing
As far as I can tell, only the Aestrin ship has this kind of sail, so this only works on this ship. The forward sail has two sheet winches. If you tighten the winch opposite the sail all the way, the sail will produce reverse thrust instead of forward thrust. The main sail also does this if used backwards, though it doesn't produce as much thrust. This works only in the close and beam reach positions.

Tacking
If you tighten the sheet winch opposite the forward sail to the close angle, then tack and do the same with the other, you can tack back and forth without further adjustment.

[Mercenary]

You can reverse with every ship, for example the junk, when you loosen the sails, you can manualy by hand push the "boom" against the wind direction, and the ship wil reverse, you can lock the rudder sligthly if you want to turn aswell

[Klawdeus]

I wonder why I often loose my hook when collecting a fish on the deck; If the fish is caught, the hook should be caught as well... And if I eat the fish, maybe I should eat the hook along ?

[amkessel]

Regarding the fishing, I also noticed that if you're reeling in too fast, the pole will vibrate when you're close to losing the fish. When that happens, just slow down your reel and you should be able to pull the fish in eventually.

[◢ k r i s ◤]

You might need to scroll slower. If you reel the fish too fast, the line will break and you'll lose the fish and the hook. You should also be mindful that the fishing line doesn't collide with walls (so you can move around and multitask and reel-in the line while doing other things) but the fish themselves will collide, so you need to make sure you don't pull them into boat itself otherwise the line will break.

[Riccars]

Am I dumb with fishing, every time I get a fish on the line i scroll back and lose the fish. I have a hook but it seems like im doing something to ruin the catch

[k e a n e]

This is the first actual sailing game I play, so while I know the theory to it, I've yet to make it practical knowledge. By the way your guide is excellent!

[John]

I learned about half of this after starting the game and looking it up, the other half I knew from other less realistic sailing games

[k e a n e]

It is embarrassing to me that my limited knowledge of practical sailing, is not practical.