WRACK. The English name for the fucus; the sea-weed used for the manufacture of kelp, and in some places artificially grown for that purpose.
WRACK-RIDER. A species of brandling faintly barred on both sides.
WRAIN-BOLT. A ring-bolt with two or more forelock-holes in it, occasionally to belay or make fast towards the middle. It is used, with the wrain-staff in the ring, for setting-to the planks.
WRAIN-STAFF. A stout billet of tough wood, tapered at its ends, so as to go into the ring of the wrain-bolt, to make the necessary setts for bringing-to the planks or thick stuff to the timber.
WRASSE. The Crenilabrus tinca, a sea-fish, sometimes called old-wife.
WRECK. The destruction of a ship by stress of weather, rocks, &c.; also the ruins of the ship after such accidents; also the goods and fragments which drive on shore after a ship is stranded. It is said that the term is derived from the sea-weed called wrack, denoting all that the sea washes on shore as it does this weed. A ship cast on shore is no wreck, in law, when any domestic animal has escaped with life in her. The custody of the cargo or goods belongs to the deputy of the vice-admiral, and they are restored to the proprietors without any fees or salvage, but what the labour of those who saved them may reasonably deserve.
WRECKAGE. Spars, rigging, or goods floating about after a wreck.
WRECKERS. A name which includes both meritorious salvors of ships in distress, and the felonious brutes who merely hasten to wrecks for plunder. One of our British colonies deemed it so entirely a legal procedure to make a wreck of or cripple a vessel on the reef, that a naval officer was threatened with legal proceedings by a lawyer whom he prevented from carrying out his practice afloat.
WRECK-FREE. Is to be exempt from the forfeiture of shipwrecked goods and vessels: a privilege which Edward I. granted by charter to the barons of the Cinque Ports.
WRIGHT'S SAILING. Synonymous with Mercator's sailing.