leeboard

Definitions

noun One of a pair of movable boards or plates attached to the hull of a sailing vessel and lowered on the leeward side to reduce downwind drift.

noun One of two long flat pieces of wood attached one on each side of a flat-bottomed vessel (as a Dutch galiot) by a bolt on which it traverses.

noun A board, or frame of planks, lowered over the side of a vessel to lessen her leeway when closehauled, by giving her greater draught.

noun nautical A board, or frame of planks, lowered over the side of a sailboat to lessen its leeway.

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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There was a fresh easterly breeze blowing when the double canoe -- or raft, as they agreed to term her -- cast off from alongside the _Mohawk_, and under its influence the craft, with one leeboard down, slid across the Javari at a speed that was as surprising as it was gratifying.

In Search of El Dorado Harry Collingwood 1886
While the vessel was on the starboard tack, the side kept him snug; but, when they wore her, of course he had no leeboard to keep him in.

A Simpleton Charles Reade 1849
They at once, therefore, hauled their wind, but they had considerable difficulty in beating up toward the frigate, till they bethought them of lowering the junks 'leeboard, when they found them sail wonderfully well to windward.

The Three Midshipmen William Henry Giles Kingston 1847
"Oh, you are not, a'n't you?" said Murphy, seizing me by one of my ears, which he pulled so unmercifully that he altered the shape of it very considerably, making it something like the leeboard of a Dutch schuyt.

Frank Mildmay Or, The Naval Officer Frederick Marryat 1820
As a keen sailor, he recognised a niche in the market in 1959, and the result was the open two-man leeboard boat called the Flying Dutchman.

YBW News 2009