Abstract: The detection for maritime targets in strong sea clutter is difficult for ship-borne radar. The sea clutter would significantly reduce the capability of radars in detecting and locating targets on the ocean surface. To suppress sea clutter effectively and distinguish useful targets, the probability density distribution, time correlation, frequency correlation of sea clutter are analyzed. Several methods are presented, such as radar system design, self-adapting CFAR, scan-to-scan accumulation and frequency agility. The result of processing real data shows that the proposed methods greatly improve the detection capability of ship-borne radar for maritime targets.