to crowd sail

9.9

To set all sails to catch as much wind as possible to make the boat go faster

phrasal verb

Specialized

: izar todas las velas

As the wind picked up, they quickly crowd sailed to maximize their speed across the open sea.

Examples

To escape their pursuers, the crew had to crowd sail despite the risk of damage.
With the storm approaching, the captain decided not to crowd sail and kept some canvas down.
They hoped to win the race by choosing to crowd sail during the final stretch.
The captain decided to crowd sail to reach the destination faster.
Why don't we crowd sail and see how fast we can go?
The captain called for the crew to crowd sail in order to gain a speed advantage over their rivals.
To outrun the approaching storm, they decided to crowd sail and capture every gust of wind available.

Antonyms

to slow down

687 1.4

To move or act more slowly

How Much Sail

to crowd sail

Specialized

9.9

under sail

Specialized

1 4.8

to reef

Specialized

1 9.1

Surface Forms

crowd sail infinitive

crowded sail past

crowded sail past participle

crowding sail present participle

crowd sails third person singular

Morphology

crowd + sail

The verb 'crowd' (to gather tightly) has a loose metaphorical link to the idea of applying as much sail as possible, but the specific nautical sense 'to set all available sails' is specialized and not an obvious compositional outcome for a B1 learner. Because the meaning is a domain-specific extension of 'crowd' rather than a directly predictable combination of 'crowd' + 'sail', it is partially inferable but would likely require exposure.

Etymology

The verb crowd sail comes from old sailors who would crowd every sail together to catch every bit of wind. So, it now means 'to set all available sails to make the ship go as fast as possible'.