In admiralty the ship itself can be sued. Not the owner, not the operator, not the charterer — the vessel, named as defendant, arrested by the marshal, and sold to satisfy a judgment against it. That personification is not a metaphor or a procedural convenience; it is the foundation of maritime credit, and it explains why a shipyard in one country can seize a vessel in another for a debt incurred by a charterer who no longer exists. This article explains how maritime liens arise without any filing, which claims generate them and in what priority, why a lien secretly attaches and travels with the vessel through changes of ownership, how arrest and attachment actually work, what security releases a ship and what it costs, and why the entire system exists to make a moving asset creditworthy.