What is "to eat the wind out of a vessel"

Eat \Eat\ ([=e]t), v. t. [imp. Ate ([=a]t; 277), Obsolescent & Colloq. Eat ([e^]t); p. p. Eaten ([=e]t"'n), Obs. or Colloq. Eat ([e^]t); p. pr. & vb. n. Eating.] [OE. eten, AS. etan; akin to OS. etan, OFries. eta, D. eten, OHG. ezzan, G. essen, Icel. eta, Sw. ["a]ta, Dan. [ae]de, Goth. itan, Ir. & Gael. ith, W. ysu, L. edere, Gr. 'e`dein, Skr. ad. [root]6. Cf. Etch, Fret to rub, Edible.]

1. To chew and swallow as food; to devour; -- said especially of food not liquid; as, to eat bread. ``To eat grass as oxen.''
   --Dan. iv. 25.

   They . . . ate the sacrifices of the dead.
   --Ps. cvi. 28.

   The lean . . . did eat up the first seven fat kine.
   --Gen. xli. 20.

   The lion had not eaten the carcass.
   --1 Kings xiii. 28.

   With stories told of many a feat, How fairy Mab the junkets eat.
   --Milton.

   The island princes overbold Have eat our substance.
   --Tennyson.

   His wretched estate is eaten up with mortgages.
   --Thackeray.

2. To corrode, as metal, by rust; to consume the flesh, as a cancer; to waste or wear away; to destroy gradually; to cause to disappear.

   To eat humble pie. See under Humble.

   To eat of (partitive use). ``Eat of the bread that can not waste.''
   --Keble.

   To eat one's words, to retract what one has said. (See the Citation under Blurt.)

   To eat out, to consume completely. ``Eat out the heart and comfort of it.''
   --Tillotson.

   To eat the wind out of a vessel (Naut.), to gain slowly to windward of her.

   Syn: To consume; devour; gnaw; corrode.