Short answers, pulled from the story.
The earliest image suggesting the use of sail on a boat appears on pottery from Mesopotamia dated to the 6th millennium BCE. The first actual representation of a sail comes from Egypt circa 3100 BCE.
Austronesian peoples used sails and developed technologies like outriggers, catamarans, and crab claw sails to colonize vast stretches of the Pacific Ocean. Their expansion from Southern China and Taiwan started in 3000 BCE and reached as far as Madagascar without modern navigation tools.
By 1500, gun ports allowed sailing vessels to sail alongside an enemy vessel and fire a broadside of multiple cannon. This development enabled naval fleets to array themselves into a line of battle to engage the enemy in parallel or perpendicular lines.
Iron-hulled sailing ships became uneconomical because steamships began to outpace them economically from the 1870s to 1900. Steamships could keep a schedule regardless of the wind and take shorter routes through the Suez and Panama Canals.
Sailing approximately 45 degrees to the wind is termed close-hauled, while 90 degrees off the wind is a beam reach. At 135 degrees off the wind, a craft is on a broad reach, and at 180 degrees off the wind, the craft is running downwind.
Sailing as a sport is organized hierarchically from the yacht club level up to national and international federations governed by World Sailing. Disciplines include Oceanic racing, fleet racing, match racing, and team racing, with events like the Vendée Globe and the America's Cup.