Almost no browser game models wind, because it is the kind of thing a player notices only when it is wrong. Broadside models it, and the first thing it teaches you is that you cannot sail into it: point too close and the sails empty and you stop. Making ground upwind means tacking, a zig-zag of long diagonals turning through the wind at each corner, and that single rule is what turns a naval fight into a thinking game.
Your guns only bear abeam, out to the sides, so a battle is a matter of arranging your hull across somebody else’s while keeping theirs off yours - which is a question about the wind before it is a question about aim. Sink a hunter, sail over the wreck to loot it, and get the haul back to port before somebody takes it off you.
⚠️ Being straight about the shelf: there is one sailing game here. The other two are on water and are not boats, and are on the page because people looking for one often want the other. Sliding Wave is surfing - hold to climb the face, release to dive. Current Swim is a fish reading a current. If you came specifically for ships, Broadside is the one.
