slatch

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“
Or the challenged ship, believing herself to be the faster craft of the two, clapped on all sail, caught an opportune "slatch of wind," and showed her pursuer a clean pair of heels, the tender's guns meanwhile barking away at her until she passed out of range.

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Definitions (8)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun New England A momentary lull between breaking waves, favorable for launching a boat.
  2. noun New England A lull in a high windstorm.
  3. Regional Note
    In New England a slatch can be a lull between breaking waves or a lull in a high windstorm. Its use is recorded as far back as the 17th century: "Whan it hath beene a sett of foule weather and that there comes an Interim . . . of faire weather . . . they call it a little Slatch of faire weather” (Nomenclator Navalis). Occurrence of the word in both its senses, formerly in Britain and now in New England, attests continuous use down through the centuries of the Old English word slæc, which is pronounced today as it was in Old English. Slæc is also the source of modern slack, the relationship of slatch and slack being evidenced in the use of slatch in 17th-century nautical parlance to denote the slack part of a rope or cable on a ship.

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Examples (2)

  • Or the challenged ship, believing herself to be the faster craft of the two, clapped on all sail, caught an opportune "slatch of wind," and showed her pursuer a clean pair of heels, the tender's guns meanwhile barking away at her until she passed out of range. —  The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore
  • You may ride in your quiet road-stead on the other side with all your ships, till God send us that long-wished-for westerly wind, unless you get a _slatch_ of wind to carry one of your ships to the _bab_, to see if all be well there, and so return back to you. —  A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 08
 

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/slætʃ/
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