Spindrift

Spindrift (more rarely spoondrift)[1] is the spray blown from cresting waves during a gale. This spray, which "drifts" in the direction of the gale, is one of the characteristics of a wind speed of 8 Beaufort and higher at sea.[2] In Greek and Roman mythology, Leucothea was the goddess of spindrift.[3]

For other uses, see Spindrift (disambiguation).
Spindrift on stormy sea

Terminology

Spindrift is a southern English word, Spoondrift a northern or Scottish word. Spindrift or spoondrift is also a term for fine sand or snow that is blown off by the wind.[4]

In the 1940s U.S. Navy, spindrift and spoondrift appear to have been used for different phenomena, as in the following record by the captain of the USS Barb (SS-220): "Visibility – which had been fair on the surface after moonrise – was now exceedingly poor due to spoondrift. Would that it were only the windblown froth of spindrift rather than the wind-driven cloudburst of water lashing the periscope exit eyepiece."[5]

References
  1. Shorter Oxford English dictionary. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. 2007. p. 3804. ISBN 978-0199206872.
  2. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-09-27. Retrieved 2011-12-14.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. See footnote 117 in Marcel Proust, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, trans. James Grieve (New York: Penguin Books, 2002).
  4. Spindrift entry on Merriam Webster. Retrieved 20 July 2008.
  5. Thunder Below!. United States of America: the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 1992. pp. 188, 189. ISBN 978-0-252-06670-2.
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