Looking for spoiler lite knowledge.  

1) I have bought lots of provisions but I get occasional notification minus morale for hard tack and water.  I have other provisions like fruits and grog and things but I don't know how to give it to my crew to make them happier

2) I had a ship fight and I couldn't understand the interface.  I won the ship fight because I had bought some canons and muddled through it enough random commands and still won the day

Anyone have answers to these or links to spoiler lite basic information?  Thanks!

In the ship menu (where you also can place your crew and cannons) you put food and drink from your stash into the slots on top (where hardtack and water should already be). It gets used automatically from left to right. E.g. when hardtack is empty and right of it sits fruit then they will consume the fruit then. If everything is empty they will get very angry...

Shipfights:

Basically as soon as you are in cannon range you turn your side to the enemy, then do "halt" --> "fire cannons" --> "jibe" --> "halt" --> "fire cannons".

Halt will increase your accuracy (see the percentage values besides the cannons). Being in the optimal range of your cannons as well. 

Good option for the Sloop are 4 Iron Thunderers because then you can do the cycle I mentioned without pausing.

If something happens (symbol under your ship down below) - e.g. severe hull dmg, man over board etc. you must send in or "assign" crew to deal with it. You drag and drop your crew members into the little window in the top left then.

Here's a guide that is sufficient I guess: 

 

 

Haven't looked at the video quite yet but how do I tell where my ship is in relation to the other?  

2 hours ago, claudius said:

Haven't looked at the video quite yet but how do I tell where my ship is in relation to the other?  

there should be a distance indicator on the ship combat interface, center bottom (in meters).

you also get a slight visual clue in the art on the right, the closer you are the bigger the art