Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A boat anchored to mark a particular spot: in yacht-racing, to mark a turning- or finishing-point in the race; in nautical surveying, to serve as a fixed point to angle upon.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • P.M. at a mark-boat moored half a mile from the shore.

    Springhaven Richard Doddridge 2004

  • She could see the little mark-boat well out in the offing, with a red flag flaring merrily, defying all the efforts of the gunners on the hill to plunge it into the bright dance of the waves.

    Springhaven Richard Doddridge 2004

  • Why, we had to treat her as gingerly as if she were a yacht rounding a mark-boat to make her bear up a point or go to the wind; although I'll give her the credit of saying, if she were cranky -- and she was that, and no mistake -- she made no leeway, which was a blessing at all events.

    Tom Finch's Monkey and How he Dined with the Admiral

  • A tearing long course it was to be, too, and pretty close on five miles: start from near-abouts where the training-ship lays now, down to a mark-boat somewheres off Torpoint, back, and finish off Saltash Quay.

    News from the Duchy Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch 1903

  • Tremenjous Hosken had fallen to groaning between the strokes, and I believe that from the mark-boat homeward he was no better than a passenger -- an eighteen-stone passenger, mind you.

    News from the Duchy Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch 1903

  • All the muscles of the French fleet came into play; the admiral's barge churned the water into creaming foam; "mes braves" were incited to superhuman exertions; in spite of it all, the Abercorn shot past the mark-boat, a winner by a length and a half.

    The Days Before Yesterday Frederick Spencer Hamilton 1892

  • To-morrow being Wednesday, and the fishing-boats at sea, Artillery practice from Fox-hill fort will be carried on from twelve at noon until three P.M. at a mark-boat moored half a mile from the shore.

    Springhaven : a Tale of the Great War 1862

  • She could see the little mark-boat well out in the offing, with a red flag flaring merrily, defying all the efforts of the gunners on the hill to plunge it into the bright dance of the waves.

    Springhaven : a Tale of the Great War 1862

  • Telling off some of the best hands to the fore and main-braces on either side, so that these could be let go or hauled taut in an instant as the wind shifted, thus necessitating the vessel changing her tack with similar rapidity, he went to the helm himself; and from this point, with the assistance of Moggridge, he conned the ship as coolly as if he were in charge of a yacht trying to weather the mark-boat in a race so as to get to windward of her competitors!

    The White Squall A Story of the Sargasso Sea J. [Illustrator] Schonberg

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