Wiktionary
vb. 1 (context transitive English) To abandon a ship at sea 2 (context transitive English) To place a person in a ship's boat or raft and leave them
Usage examples of "cast adrift".
It is twelve hundred leagues from the place where the launch was cast adrift.
Scarcely were the sails set, when I heard the swish and flick of gaskets being cast adrift on the lower yards, and realised that ghostly things were at work there.
Then, without speaking, they resumed their oars, and pulled to the other vessel, on board of which they succeeded in establishing our hero and themselves, although the boat was stove in the attempt, and cast adrift as useless.
And some of us--who have never understood the salvation in the Golden Mean--some of us are cast adrift with but one chance.
Bligh and those who went with him had been cast adrift, and the launch was far astern.
He felt that he had been cast adrift suddenly and now must thrash his way back to some steady place.
She could see, at the cloud's rough center, the execution Wheel, cast adrift from the old Market.
Keen had been on deck and had yelled for the quarter-boat to be cast adrift.