The Collaborative International Dictionary
Flowing \Flow"ing\, a. That flows or for flowing (in various sense of the verb); gliding along smoothly; copious.
Flowing battery (Elec.), a battery which is kept constant
by the flowing of the exciting liquid through the cell or
cells.
--Knight.
Flowing furnace, a furnace from which molten metal, can be drawn, as through a tap hole; a foundry cupola.
Flowing sheet (Naut.), a sheet when eased off, or loosened
to the wind, as when the wind is abaft the beam.
--Totten.
Usage examples of "flowing sheet".
Sometimes I have known it begin to blow north of the Canaries and so waft us down with a flowing sheet past the tropic line and on almost to the equator itself: something in the nature of two thousand miles with a flowing sheet!
They moved in a mass, a flowing sheet of motion with many tiny bobbing eddies, so that the entire group of them seemed to be in constant agitation.
An easy sail and a flowing sheet: and while Jack consoled himself with Gluck and toasted cheese the hands gathered on the forecastle and danced in the warm moonlight until the setting of the watch, and, by Pullings' leave, beyond it.
Stephen slept the longer of the two, but when at last he came on deck he found that he was in time for an evening so perfect that it made all foul weather seem worth while: with a flowing sheet and under an easy sail the Surprise was slipping through the sea: and such a sea, smooth, dreamlike, limitless, with an infinity of subtle nacreous colours merging into one another and a vast pure sky overhead.
At one moment, when the ideas flow, you have the wind aft, and away you scud, with a flowing sheet, and a rapidity which delights you: at other times, when your spirit flags, and you gnaw your pen (I have lately used iron pens, for I'm a devil of a crib-biter), it is like unto a foul wind, tack and tack, requiring a long time to get on a short distance.
The Constitution was sailing northwards with a flowing sheet, helped on her way by the great current that flowed from the Gulf of Mexico.
With a fair wind and a flowing sheet the Surprise, stores and water all completed - no stragglers, no drunken hands taken up by the Funchal police - bore away a little east of south.
The following morning the fresh water and provisions were received on board, and once more the Pacific stretched her broad canvas to the winds, and there was every prospect of a rapid voyage, as for many days she continued her passage with a fair wind and flowing sheet.