broach to

broach +‎ to

broach to (third-person singular simple present broaches to, present participle broaching to, simple past and past participle broached to)

1. (nautical) To incline suddenly and involuntarily to windward, which can expose the vessel to the risk of capsizing.
   • 1901, The Ghost Ship author=John Conroy Hutcheson, Chapter Six:

     “Haul in your jib sheet and flatten those staysails sharp! I want to bring her round to the wind handsomely, to prevent taking in another of those green seas aboard when we get broadside-on. Look smart, bo’sun, and keep your eye on her. Keep your eye on her, d’you hear? It’s ticklish work, you know. Look-out sharp or she’ll broach to!”

   • 1911 June, Jack London, The Cruise of the Snark, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC:

     The air so thick with driving spray that it was impossible to see more than two waves at a time. The schooner was almost unmanageable, rolling her rail under to starboard and to port, veering and yawing anywhere between south-east and south-west, and threatening, when the huge seas lifted under her quarter, to broach to. Had she broached to, she would ultimately have been reported lost with all hands and no tidings.

• “broach”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• Obrochta