The Spanish ships had superior speed and weatherliness.    From Wordnet, Princeton University. 

Thanks to her two knots superiority in speed and thanks also to her superior handiness and weatherliness the Estrella was literally making a circle round the Clorinda.    From Wordnik.com.  [Hornblower In The West Indies]

White painted and trim, she spelled speed and weatherliness in every line, and a note of admiration escaped Barry as he regarded her clean underbody from a safe distance.    From Wordnik.com.  [Gold Out of Celebes] Reference

The result, had the wind held, would have been a trial of speed and weatherliness.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence] Reference

For the moment, therefore, he contented himself with testing the respective speed and weatherliness of the two ships.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Middy of the King A Romance of the Old British Navy] Reference

You are right, the ship is being over pressed, and I believe that what we may lose by taking the square canvas off her will be more than made up to us by our gain in weatherliness.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Middy in Command A Tale of the Slave Squadron] Reference

Fortunately the schooner's extraordinary weatherliness stood us in good stead, and enabled us to claw off, but for which we should probably have left her bones, if not our own, there.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Middy of the King A Romance of the Old British Navy] Reference

Yet I had heard of vessels thus modelled for the sake of securing speed, and fitted with a very deep keel to ensure weatherliness, where light draught of water was not a consideration; and it remained to be seen whether the brigantine was a craft of this class.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Middy of the King A Romance of the Old British Navy] Reference

I began to see a French prison looming in the distance; for, from the rapidity with which she had tacked, and the manner in which, notwithstanding our superior weatherliness, she was overhauling us, I knew that our pursuer must be an exceedingly smart ship, and her skipper was acting like a man who had all his wits about him.    From Wordnik.com.  [Under the Meteor Flag Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War] Reference

It was not her speed only -- although that seemed phenomenal, for she swept past every other craft that was going our way as though they had been at anchor; her weatherliness astounded us quite as much as did her speed, for she looked up a good three points higher than did our square-rigged neighbours, while her oil-smooth wake trailed away astern as straight as.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Middy of the King A Romance of the Old British Navy] Reference