boatlength

plural boatlengths · alternative boatslength

1. A distance equal to the length of a boat.

   His failing form the tides wash o’er, / Within a boatlength of the shore.

   1835 December, “Extract from the unpublished Poem of Tahamold, or the Raven Hair”, in The Ladies’ Companion, New York, N.Y., page 78, column 2

   2 more examples

   Philip was rowing nervously, two boatlengths behind, and the others had given up the race, and were paddling near the banks to talk with their friends.

   1895, Alyn Yates Keith [pseudonym; Eugenia Laura Tuttle Morris], chapter XII, in A Spinster’s Leaflets: Wherein Is Written the History of Her “Doorstep Baby,” a Fancy Which in Time Became a Fact and Changed a Life, Boston, Mass.: Lee and Shepard […], page 97

   The men dropped their ropes and jogged away from the front of the collier. Bartlett guided the collier back to the mouth of the harbour and gave her full throttle. His momentum split the ice and carried him in a few boatlengths.

   2004, Michael Winter, The Big Why, Bloomsbury Publishing, published 2006, →ISBN, page 65