Sailing and sailing into the wind

i was doing some interesting tests last night on sail speed particularly sailing into the wind.

now on an old square rigger your area of "no sail" is pretty wide as you couldn't realistically angle the sails further

but we can angle are sails pretty well and for gameplay purposes etc.

so more akin to the modern "sloop"

which still leaves an area of no go for sailing

anyway onto my point, so i though if i sailed close hauled in the sloop i would indeed get to my destination quicker, but alas no and interestingly there appears to be a "bug" perhaps in the sailing technique.

so the test.

The map is divided into squares, i would set the sails well before the start of the square and time the ship to get from one side to the other (pretty basic)

Test one - Sails angled to the wind and sailing directly into the wind

Time to cross 1:10 (70s)

Sail flat as a pancake noob fashion

Time to cross 1:01 (61S)

Ok so this is faster?

And finally sailing close hauled about 30° to the wind and tacking half way across

Time to cross 1:20 (80s)

hmm disappointing i would have thought sailing close hauled it would have been quicker as its not only realistic its more involved on the crew and requires more skill to plot routes

and just for completeness

Sails set on a broad reach (fastest point of sail) and a square takes ~40s
down wind and anypoint where the sail billows out is pretty much the same.

TL:DR

dont try to "sail" your boat - stick your sails flat against the wind when going upwind for a minor speed advantage (which it the real world would make your sail backwards)

i didnt know this so apologies if its a known "bug" or SoT trait of the game