Learn Dutch: Zonder de kapitein kwam het schip stuurloos te drijven. - Without the captain, the ship ended up floating adrift.

This sentence uses the komen te + infinitive construction, which emphasizes entering a new resulting state. It is very similar to 'ended up doing' or 'came to be doing' in English. If you just used the simple past dreef (floated), it would describe a simple action in the past, entirely missing the nuance that the ship ended up in this state as a consequence of the captain being gone.

What is the literal meaning of stuurloos?

It literally means 'rudderless' or 'without steering'. It is made by combining stuur (rudder, helm, or steering wheel) with the suffix -loos (the equivalent of the English suffix '-less'). While translated here as 'adrift' to sound natural in English, it specifically paints a picture of a ship that can no longer be controlled.

Why is the verb kwam placed before the subject het schip?

This is a classic example of the V2 (verb-second) rule that you learned earlier. Because the sentence begins with the prepositional phrase Zonder de kapitein, the finite verb kwam must take the second position in the sentence. This forces the subject het schip to invert and move directly after the verb.

How does komen te differ from continuous aspect structures like liggen te?