SCURRY. Perhaps from the Anglo-Saxon scur, a heavy shower, a sudden squall. It now means a hurried movement; it is more especially applied to seals or penguins taking to the water in fright.
SCUTTLE. A small hole or port cut either in the deck or side of a ship, generally for ventilation. That in the deck is a small hatchway.
SCUTTLE, To. To cut or bore holes through part of a ship when she is stranded or over-set, and continues to float, in order to save any part of her contents. Also, a trick too often practised by boring holes below water, to sink a ship, where fictitious cargo is embarked and the vessel insured beyond her value. (See [Barratry].)
SCUTTLE OR SCUTTLED BUTT. A cask having a square piece sawn out of its bilge and lashed in a convenient place to hold water for present use.
SCUTTLE-HATCH. A lid or hatch for covering and closing the scuttles when necessary.
SEA. 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."
SEA-ADDER. The west-country term for the pipe-fish Syngnathus. The name is also given to the nest-making stickleback.
SEA-ANCHOR. That which lies towards the offing when a ship is moored.
SEA-ATTORNEY. The ordinary brown and rapacious shark.
SEA-BANK. A work so important that our statutes make it felony, without benefit of clergy, maliciously to cut down any sea-bank whereby lands may be overflowed.