Welcome to SBO you've already made a great start to learning how to sail and the people on this site have ready information. Glad you found somebody that can give you lessons in the winter, sometimes that's not so easy this time of year. On the other hand it looks like you may be a weekend sailor so you might try what I did. The PO( previous owner) left his boat to his family so I could not ask him how to sail the boat however I did find a couple friendly sailors at the dock where I slipped my boat and asked them. Fortunately I was dangerous but knew it and came across a retired school teacher there. I said nice boat how does it work and began getting answers that I didn't know I didn't know to ask. If you know the PO you might go back and ask them to show how the boat works and maybe special features that you wouldn't find out easily on your own.