That's a very interest project. As a amateur sailor I have played with some models for sailing path optimizatio, wich can be somehow related to your problem. I started with a very simple model using sailing polar graphs, these map wind speed and course to maximum speed and usually based on empirical data, I found some DBs with this data, I can check if you are interest. Nevertheless for a better simulation you will at least need a simple model that gives you the forces at least especially if you want to simulate the boat acceleration, heeling and leeway. Simulating the sail foil behaviour would be very computational intesive as the airflow around it can get very complicated especially as the sail changes it's shape with it.