From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmiss the boatmiss the boatinformalCHANCE/OPPORTUNITY to fail to take an opportunity that will give you an advantage You’ll miss the boat if you don’t buy shares now. → miss
Examples from the Corpus
miss the boat• Buy your shares in the company now or you'll miss the boat.• Sorry, I missed the boat.• True to form, he missed the boat.• He didn't get his application in early enough so he missed the boat.• Now Celtic may have missed the boat!• On certain policy issues, politicians also miss the boat.• Customers were worried about missing the boat by not buying any stocks.• But Carlsbad itself is missing the boat in another respect.• And there was this old comic called Jack Daw, who'd missed the boat on account of booze.• And feminism has missed the boat, Roiphe says, by focusing on the wrong things.• Frankly, he's missed the boat with Rosa. 