I don't think that would work. Sailboats can sail into the wind similarly to how an airplane can have a glide ratio greater than one. The wind presses on the sail, and the boat transfers that to the water in such a way that it is easier for the boat to go forward than be pushed backwards. Of course it still slips back some, but it goes forward faster than it slips backwards.
I agree. Tacking requires "levering" against a fulcrum (the the centerboard on a water yacht and the skates on an ice yacht. Imaging trying to tack on a frictionless surface - you'd simply get swept away from the wind.
Anything we can get out of our gravity well will have an orbit around the sun. If it didn’t you wouldn’t bother with a high impulse/low thrust engine like this.
Your momentum is what you’d be pushing against.
Specifically, using a force vector with a substantial component (greater than 50%) in the opposite direction of travel. It would push you out but also slow you down.
This kind of vectoring should be straightforward with a solar sail because it is flat. But if a magnetic field is perfectly spherical then there aren’t any angles. You’d have to make a fairly flat magnetic field to pull that off.
why wouldn't this work with a plasma field? If you inflate your leading edge to be larger, your net solar wind flux is going to be larger and a greater amount of force will be transferred to the craft from the leading edge, slowing you down. Even though you're being pushed OUT by the solar wind, your tangential velocity relative to the sun will be reduced, which, even if it results in a greater net orbital energy, will result in a more elliptical orbit (and thus a trajectory that sends you inwards).
