Definition of "weatherly" [weath•er•ly]

• Able to sail close to the wind with little drift to leeward. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The cat was weatherly, too, and he pushed it to extremes of weather and distance just for the thrill of it."
• "Her motion was violent and, to the uninitiated, quite unpredictable, and she was hardly more weatherly than a raft, sagging off to leeward in a spineless fashion that boded ill for any prospect of working up to Plymouth while any easterly component prevailed in the wind."
• "She was nothing like as weatherly and far slower; the brig would headreach and weather on her."