Resources for tall ship warfare?

1. You aren't fool. You'll just have to really read up on terminology.
2. Honestly, wikipedia is a usually reliable source for non-political articles. Start there and see what sources the various articles use.

As another option, you could have your MC someone unfamiliar with nautical terms who finds himself among pirates.

I'd hesitate before calling anyone a 'fool,' but to answer your question: if you want to be 'convincing' i.e. 'authentic' you're going to have to do an enormous amount of research. I'd suggest, first, deciding on when in history your story is set. Then research the types of sailing ships in use at that time. Choose one as your main ship within your period and get to work. Study its layout, above and below decks, its masts and rigging and how the sails were manipulated, how it sailed, how many men crewed it and the roles of each at sea, what they ate and drank, how the ship was armed, how it fought, etc. etc. etc. You need to know your ship and its capabilities inside out.

Next you need a basic knowledge of sea-routes, weather, navigation, naval tactics of the time, types and purpose of sails, and nautical terminology.
If I were undertaking such a project, and starting with little, or no knowledge, I would expect to spend months on basic, factual research and even more months reading memoirs and biographies of seafarers from the period of my novel, before I felt ready to set sail with my story.

I'm afraid I can't think of a single 'one-stop' concise resource which will allow someone who knows very little about seafaring under sail to write about it convincingly. There's simply too much

What period are you going to use? There were significant changes in ships and navigation and weapons during the period when there were pirates in the Caribbean using sailing ships. You might find several novels set there and read those to see how others have handled the matter.

Moving to roundtable, hang on to your hats.

Some time ago I stumbled across George Choundas' The Pirate Primer: Mastering the Language of Swashbucklers and Rogues (2007), Writers Digest Books, ISBN-13; 987-1-59963-196-7. It was distributed in Canada, U.K., Australia, and the US. This is a little known gem--an absolute wealth of knowledge, to include literary and film references interspersed amongst historical facts. It's especially helpful in crafting appropriate dialogue. The author, an attorney and former FBI agent, is from Florida, now based in New York.

It's a great reference book--and I can't read any part of it without chuckling. I know he had a lot of fun writing it.

Certainly not impossible, but you need to remember that the audience likely to read this kind of historical are probably aficionados, and will know a lot about nautical details of such vessels. And they won't gloss over factual errors lightly. If you can find something like a museum featuring nautical history, that would be a highly valuable place to visit. And don't forget about contemporaneous books set in the age of sail, such as Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana. Longitude, by Dava Sobel is also a good read, and centers around the difficulty in finding longitude at sea, and how it was solved. It was also made into a good historical documentary called Lost at Sea, narrated by Richard Dreyfuss, and featuring Sobel and other experts.

caw

If you're in a position to do so, you might consider sailing aboard a tall ship.

You are in luck, rba.
I can tell you where your one-stop-shop should be.
You need to visit archive.org they have every type of nautical subject that you need. How do I know? I have downloaded many PDFs.
Narrow your focus and search specific terms and then apply some of the advice above.
Query shipbuilding, battle ships, types of vessels, sailing dictionaries or nautical dictionaries.
Query pre-steam ocean traveling, naval battles and especially the merchant marine of specific countries. Like say, France or Spain or Holland.

Query foods for sailing ships and military vessels, query details and names about ships officers and ranks. There are remarkable things to learn from all the old books on archive.org. like you don't need a huge ship to cross the Atlantic. Though it is risky many desperate Americans have made the run in an old skiff for the purposes of trade.

Read the huge amount of memoirs by naval officers, doctors, sailors and travelers. One of the good things is that the career Sea Men almost always speak in naval terms giving naval expression in all correspondence because it was their daily life. All their letters home are filled with the naval expressions that you are searching for.

Go to archive.org and type in "merchant marine." 862 books come up for your research.
Some titles are: Colonial Clippers by Basil Lubbock.
Merchant Vessels of the United States, year 1920.
American Vessels Captured by the British.
Navel Science for the Merchant Marine.

C. S. Forester, author of the "Hornblower" books, wrote about a man who went from Midshipman to Captain to Admiral in the British Navy in the late 1700s and early 1800s. His novels are noted about being very accurate as to time and place, sailing and navigating, and all the details about the sailing ships and men who fought in them.
Before he started writing he had some free time and he used it to read the real-life log books written by British Sea Captains in the Napoleonic wars.
He found them in a book store I don't know if these things are still available but with all the digitalization of olde books I would not be surprised.
PS Don't fall for the old "walked the plank" stuff. It is hooey written long after.

-rba-, if you're still reading here, I'd suggest that noirdood's advice is probably a great place to start, and upthread a bit Errant Lobe gives you directions as to how you might find such material.

I don't at all think this is a fool's project, but I do think you need to do some excellent and thorough self-education, for reasons blacbird gives. Your audience will be knowledgeable and incorrect details will turn them off.

So it would be a slow project but if your inspiration keeps you going, then go for it, I say.

Patrick O'Brian is another author you might look into.

Be careful when doing research based on novels: the original novelist knew when he was fudging things for narrative purposes; you don't.

As far as resources: The Seventy-Four Gun Ship by Jean Boudriot, translated by David H. Roberts, four volumes, is outstanding. Also, the Mariner's Museum in Newport News, Virginia, and Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut, are well worth the visit (particularly their libraries).

Michael Critchton's book, Pirate Latitudes, though terribly edited (he was dead by the time they found it hidden in his computer). Has great descriptions from everything from ships to clothing. I love the opening chapter which in great detail describes a Governor of..Hispaniola? Getting up in the morning. How he brushed his teeth and the white lead he lathered on his face so he appeared white and prestigious as possible.