Wiktionary
vb. (context nautical transitive English) To remain at a safe distance from (another vessel or hazard)
Usage examples of "lie off".
They would lie off-shore during the night, and the following day until the battle was decided.
As you may or may not have learned while working in the Pentagon, the principal reason that the United States became so deeply involved in the war in my country was the pressure by the oil companies to get control of the vast offshore oil fields that lie off our southern Vietnamese coast.
Put out with all our ships and lie off Asgard until you see along which coast the Jotun fleet comes.
If he found the box he was to leave it there, to send out a small yacht provisioned for a voyage, which was to lie off Rutland Island, and to which we were to make our way, and finally to return to his duties.
His fingers curled like feral claws, and he sprang forward, ripping at the arms as if he were trying to rend a black lie off the stone of the world.
No, you take one company by the inland road to Oswestry, and I'll take the second by Careghofa, and we'll lie off until he moves in, and circle him from north and south together.