sea

The Sailor's Word-Book

Strictly speaking, sea is the next large division of water after ocean, but in its special sense signifies only any large portion of the great mass of waters almost surrounded by land, as the Black, the White, the Baltic, the China, and the Mediterranean seas, and in a general sense in contradistinction to land. By sailors the word is also variously applied. Thus they say


"We shipped a heavy sea." "There is a great sea on in the offing." "The sea sets to the southward," &c. Hence a ship is said to head the sea when her course is opposed to the direction of the waves.

♦ A long sea implies a uniform motion of long waves, the result of a steady continuance of the wind from nearly the same quarter.

♦ A short sea is a confused motion of the waves when they run irregularly so as frequently to break over a vessel, caused by sudden changes of wind. The law claims for the crown wherever the sea flows to, and there the admiralty has jurisdiction; accordingly, no act can be done, no bridge can span a river so circumstanced without the sanction of the admiralty. It claims the fore-shore unless specially granted by charter otherwise, and the court of vice-admiralty has jurisdiction as to flotsam and jetsam on the fore-shore. But all crimes are subject to the laws, and are tried by the ordinary courts as within the body of a county, comprehended by the chord between two headlands where the distance does not exceed three miles from the shore. Beyond that limit is "the sea, where high court of admiralty has jurisdiction, but where civil process cannot follow."

The Sailor's Word-Book

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