lee shore
n.
A shore toward which the wind blows and toward which a ship is likely to be driven.
yourdictionary.com
lee shore
One entry found for lee shore.
Main Entry: lee shore
Function: noun
: a shore lying off a ship's leeward side and constituting a severe danger in storm
webster.com
JSTOR: 'The Lee Shore'
A ' lee shore ' is the most dreaded of all the mariner's predicaments, ... To my mind the outburst is the raison d'etre of 'The Lee Shore. ...
links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0027-4666(19300301)71%3A1045%3C252%3A'LS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-F
Doesn't sound like a shore protected from the wind to me.
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You've been warned. Today, however, the wind is westerly, and it's not shifting. We've left our put-in miles to windward, and we're heading down the lake toward the lee shore at the eastern end. "Lee shore"? It's a phrase calculated to raise the blood pressure of any sailor. Here's why. You can't sail into the eye of the wind. So a lee shore is a trap. Many sailing ships have ended their days on one, pinned by the implacable force of an unrelenting wind, then driven aground and broken up by the hammer-blows of successive breakers. It's no wonder that sailors are happiest when they have miles of open water under their lee, and the nearest lee shore is well over the horizon.
paddling.net
Beware the Lee Shore
© 1996 Kenneth R. Ong
"...I was speeding around the foot of the bay, hiked out flat. It seemed to be a glorious finale to the season until I capsized. As I have intimated, I am no stranger to capsizing. I have spent as much time in the water as on it. I deftly climbed onto the business end of the centerboard and to my bewilderment nothing happened. I was once again on a lee shore, a situation I have developed an increasingly healthy respect for. Each white capped wave pounded the masthead more deeply into the mud at the bottom of the bay. I had retrieved my sister-in-law from exactly the same spot with the same boat in the same predicament the month before. There were no whitecaps then but I did not think I would have any more trouble righting the boat now than I did then. I was wrong. I sat on the centerboard patiently, certain that the mud would slowly release its captive if given enough time. The minutes passed. A half hour passed. A lee shore had been my undoing once again..."
kennethrong.net
On a Lee Shore 1900
oil on canvas
39" x 39"
risd.edu
"Let me only say that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give succor; the port is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that's kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea's landlessness again; for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe! Know ye, now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore? But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God --so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing --straight up, leaps thy apotheosis! "
worldwideschool.org
"Anchoring on a lee-shore, and cutting away masts.
When it is impossible to "claw off" a lee shore, and carrying canvass is of no avail, the adoption of the following practice is best calculated to recover the ship from her perilous position. After preparing cables and anchors, so as to be let go alternately, and dropped at a little distance from each other, in a line parallel to the shore, proceed thus. Furl, the square-sails as quickly as possible, and brace all the yards full; set all the fore-and-aft storm-sails; put the helm up, so as to keep way on the ship, as the cable of each anchor runs out in succession. The anchor pertaining to the cables on the weathermost hawse-holes, should be dropped first. Give the ship as much cable as her situation will permit, being careful that they all bear an equal strain. If you have not previously had time to make the ship snug aloft, do so immediately. Should the wind increase in violence, so as to endanger the ship driving on shore, her masts had better be cut away immediately. Vessels obliged to anchor on a lee-shore, in very exposed and dangerous situations, in gales of wind, not unfrequently defer cutting away their masts, until it is too late to save the vessel. I much fear that merchant seamen are often obliged to consider too much about the expense of replacing their spars, and loss of freight to the owners, at the very time that the axes should be at work in cutting away the masts. It should be borne in mind, that a square-rigged vessel will not generally ride above half the strain on her cables after her masts are cut away. When near a rocky lee shore, it is too late to bring with much hope soafety, after the vessel has once commenced to drive; however, even in such cases, cutting away the masts has svaed many vessels. If all your anchors are down, and cables out, bearing an equal and very heavy strain, with wind and sea increasing, a dangerous rocky shore, and death staring you in the face, if the vessel drive, cut away your masts immediately; a moment's delay may be fatal to ship, cargo, and crew. I am under an impression, that many vessels, lives, and cargoes, are lost yearly through neglecting this precaution. I do not advocate cutting away the masts except in extreme cases; but when these cases do occur, the officer must be quick in his decision, and prompt in execution, always being careful to keep the lower stays, and as many of the shrouds on each mast fast, as will insure their falling on the sides you wish, having previously passed the ends of a hawser between the lanyards of the rigging to be kept fast; this hawser well boused taut, and secured, will enable you to cut away the rigging better afer the falling of the masts."
bruzelius.info
"Lee shore: With the wind as the motive force, the direction of the wind was as important as the compass direction (see 'Charting the Great Winds, Osher Map Library Lesson 2' and 'Defining the Earth, Osher Map Library Lesson 14'). By using the ship as a reference point, the direction of the wind could be ascertained. The side of the ship from which the wind was blowing was the windward or weather side. The opposite side of the ship was the down wind or lee side. Since a ship, regardless of the depth of the keel, tends to drift down wind. Obstacles on the lee shore were very dangerous since if the ship lost part of its rigging it would be unable to maneuver; it could be driven ashore. Thus to be caught on a lee shore was a constant fear to sailors."
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