Leeway

[Hydrozoan]

Leeway in the nautical world is, I always thought, an undesirable quality - a cause of lost time and a possible source of danger. But ashore, it's a different kettle of fish: the first Oxford definition is an "amount of freedom" - with the sub-meaning of "a margin of safety".

Was it I wondered just a case of it's happening to acquire a positive connotation in everyday language, or did "Making an allowance for leeway" come to be associated with being allowed a measure of ... er ... latitude? Given all the nautical expressions which have entered the wider language, I tried to think of others that had undergone a similar inversion. And I wondered what the position is in French, and if a modern naval officer might ask for a measure of leeway in his key performance indicators ...

But now I've seen a secondary nautical definition as "The amount of navigable seaway available to the lee of a vessel", which fits with the idea of margin of freedom or safety. Does anyone know when that was first used, and where?

 

[Babylon]

Leeway is the amount a vessel is pushed to leeward by the affect of that component of the wind acting perpendicular to its beam which cannot be converted by the foil effect of its keel into forward motion.

A sailing boat will typically lose more ground to leeward the further ahead the true wind relative to its heading. The effect of leeway is also normally greater the rougher the sea state.

To allow for leeway - in common parlance - is therefore to give oneself a greater margin away from an undesirable position in the first place. In the context of a sailing vessel, especially an historic type without any form of auxiliary power, such an undesirable position would usually be a lee-shore.

Hope this helps.

 

[sarabande]

I like the instructions in a long ago Admiralty Sailing Instructions.


Lee Shore - Never allow yourself to get into this predicament.

 

[JumbleDuck]

I like the instructions in a long ago Admiralty Sailing Instructions.

Lee Shore - Never allow yourself to get into this predicament.

I once read the Notes for Visiting Pilots for a gliding strip in the Rockies, built on a small ridge jutting out from a very much higher one, so that landing had to be done towards a near cliff. It said something along the lines of "Undershoot option: turn right, fly out into the valley, land in such-and-such a field. Overshoot option: death."

 

[Hydrozoan]

Leeway is the amount a vessel is pushed to leeward by the affect of that component of the wind acting perpendicular to its beam which cannot be converted by the foil effect of its keel into forward motion.

Thanks. Yes that's a formal definition of the 'bad' ("slip-sliding away" ) thing we are familar with. But in transferring from the nautical to the general language, leeway has come to mean the 'good' things freedom (of movement or action) or margin of safety (both definitions from the OED). I presumed - as you also imply - that the nautical concept of allowance for leeway had replaced the meaning of leeway itself when, or after, the word entered the general language. That would explain the change from connoting a 'bad' thing to connoting 'good' things.

End of story I thought. But then I came across "Leeway 1) Measurement of movement of a vessel to the side opposite the wind. 2) The
amount of navigable seaway available to the lee of a vessel" at the Sea Talk Nautical Dictionary (STND) (http://www.seatalk.info/). Definition 1 is leeway as you and I understand it, but definition 2 is quite different - and does have connotations of freedom and margin of safety.

So I'm left wondering if the general meaning of leeway came via STND definition 2. But I'd not come across the latter before, and am trying to find out when and where it was first used - the STND site is a US one I think, so perhaps it's a North American usage.

PS to sarabande and Jumbleduck: Have you read John Steinbeck's 'Log from the Sea of Cortez'? He refers there to the pessimistic and lugubrious character of nautical pilot books - evidently applies aeronautically, too.

 

[TimBennet]

Yes it comes from definition 2. It's the amount of water 'below you' when you're on the wind. So for a sailing vessel (especially square riggers / traditionally rigged vessels), it represented your only 'safety margin' or your room to manoeuvre.

 

[Hydrozoan]

Thanks Tim. It leaves me thinking that leeway as the available water 'below you', rather then the extent to which you were actually pushed into it, was the original, primary meaning.

 

[prv]

Thanks Tim. It leaves me thinking that leeway as the available water 'below you', rather then the extent to which you were actually pushed into it, was the original, primary meaning.

That idea doesn't ring true to me. A ship's "way" is its movement through the water, when it's going backwards it's making sternway, so leeway makes sense as its movement down to leeward. Not the space that it moves into. "Way" is quite an old English word, cognate with the Germanic "weg", and it means a path or a route (the way the ship is going), not an area (the margin of safety available to it). I can't imagine "sense two" coming into use first.

I go with your original theory, that the concept of an allowance for leeway got shortened and corrupted to just the operative word.

Pete

 

[Hydrozoan]

Yes Pete, thanks. I agree about the order of usage, and was just about (honest ) to add a correcting edit to say that after reflecting on 'way', I see Definition 1 must have been the first.

 

[TimBennet]

The Oxford dictionary gives 'Room to Manoeuvre' as its first definition. Also 'way' in nautical parlance doesn't automatically mean movement. It also means 'an area of safe water'. So we have fairways going into harbours and leeway to mean the amount of navigable water below you .

The use of leeway meaning the amount of room lost to lee when on the wind is a shortening of 'leeway drift' or 'leeway set'. That is, the amount your boat drifts into, or is set into your 'leeway'.

 

[[70521]]

I just take account of it and never worry about it.

 

[prv]

The Oxford dictionary gives 'Room to Manoeuvre' as its first definition.

Sure, because for most of the population the figurative use is the most important one.

Also 'way' in nautical parlance doesn't automatically mean movement. It also means 'an area of safe water'. So we have fairways going into harbours and leeway to mean the amount of navigable water below you .

Ah, now that (highlighted part) is interesting, if true. But do you have any examples to back it up? I'm discounting "leeway" because that's the word at issue, and a fairway is surely a track or path, not an area.

Pete

 

[TimBennet]

'The Fairway' is a noun that means safe water. In fact the old name for the current 'safe water mark' was fairway buoy. If you look on charts it often says 'Fairway dredged to 40 ft' etc.

Boats built where they can be safely slipped into the water are said to be built on the ways. If you grease their path to make the process easier, you end up with a slipway.

 

[prv]

'The Fairway' is a noun that means safe water.

Yes, but it doesn't mean just any old safe water - it specifically means the safe path in and out of harbour.

Boats built where they can be safely slipped into the water are said to be built on the ways. If you grease their path to make the process easier, you end up with a slipway.

Yet more examples of a path or route - this time into the water - rather than an area of safety.

Pete

 

[Hydrozoan]

The Oxford dictionary gives 'Room to Manoeuvre' as its first definition. Also 'way' in nautical parlance doesn't automatically mean movement. It also means 'an area of safe water'. So we have fairways going into harbours and leeway to mean the amount of navigable water below you .

The use of leeway meaning the amount of room lost to lee when on the wind is a shortening of 'leeway drift' or 'leeway set'. That is, the amount your boat drifts into, or is set into your 'leeway'.

I took fairway to imply a 'safe course', and my nautical dictionary gives "navigable channel", which though an area of water is also entirely consistent with a course or way. It also gives the origin of 'way' as OE 'weg' and a cognate Germanic root, as Pete pointed out.

I had not thought of "leeway" (room to manoeuvre) being actually used in a very specific nautical way, as I was entirely focused on its negative sense - which is how I think about it on the boat. And this dual (nautical) usage does seem a bit strange: "What's our leeway?" is a very ambiguous question.

OK, context and form of words would make the question clear: "What leeway are we making?" or "What leeway do we have?". But one might have expected lee room (by analogy with sea room) for the "room to manoeuvre to leeward" concept.

Yes, I know - language is not the result of logical development!

PS The first definitions of "Seaway" in the online OED all involve the idea of a route or channel. But there is of course also: "a rough sea in which to sail".

 

[johnalison]

The general public were never very good at picking up on technical terms. Take "quantum leap" or "learning curve" for example. Leeway has just become a loose metaphor to most people, but I don't think it matters much.