A sail boat does not make better progress by tacking. What tacking does is, it allows the sail boat to make forward progress when sailing into a head wind. The closer to the wind you sail, the less time it will take to get from point A to B. However too close to the wind and you chance the occasional luff, due to being too close to the head wind. Also tacking is not going to make it less time because you are covering a greater distance by constantly tacking. If you have to sail into a wind, the ONLY way you will be able to do this IS by tacking because a sail boat by design, can not sail directly into a head wind, it MUST sail at an angle towards the wind, deflecting it off its sail and thereby propelling itself forward, moving left and right into the direction of the wind, over a period of time.
As for flying back to home, if you think of the drone letting out a long string behind it as it goes about flying home. A straight A to B will be the shortest route and the shortest time. A zig-zagging A to B to C to D to E to F for example, will let out a lot of string behind the drone and when you lay those two piece out straight, you will see the length you flew in the zig-zag or tacking route is far, far greater than the straight line A to B route and obviously the time to travel that distance is longer than the shortest, straight A to B route.
Therefore, tacking (zig-zagging) with a drone is not something you want to do when trying to get home the quickest and tacking in a sail boat is not the quickest way either to get from A to B, it is simply done out of necessity. If you have a headwind to fly against, then simply drop to as low an altitude as safely possible to diminish that head wind component. In general, the wind is always at a lower speed, the closer to the ground you get.