flying moor

noun

Nautical.

1. the act of mooring a vessel between two anchors, the first dropped while the vessel is under way.

Example Sentences

With great skill our pilot tried a "flying moor," letting our anchor go while we were forging ahead at a good rate, then immediately clewing up all sail.

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We made a "flying moor" in fine style, in spite of the great fleet of ships surrounding us, the sails were furled, decks cleared up, and all hands dismissed forrard to meditate upon the successful close of our passage of seven months from Liverpool.

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But of the same ship he told me that she stood into the harbor of Malta under all sail, royal and studding sails, to make a flying moor; which, I must explain to the unprofessional, is to drop an anchor under sail, the cable running out under the force of the ship's way till the place is reached for letting go the second anchor, the ship finally being brought to lie midway between the two.

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It was just noon when, having arrived off the mouth of the river, we made a flying moor of it, letting go the first and then the second bower anchor in ten fathoms, at a distance of about one and a half miles from the shore, and at a spot from which the river mouth and perhaps half a mile of the river itself were in plain view.

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Sail was shortened as we came in, and the ship made a flying moor; after which we lay as securely, at if actually in some basin wrought by art.

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