Determined ship, caught in stormy seas near England, evacuated (8)
I believe the answer is:
assessed
'determined' is the definition.
(assessing is a kind of determining)
'ship caught in stormy seas near england evacuated' is the wordplay.
'ship' becomes 'ss' (prefix in ship names eg SS Great Britain).
'caught in' is an insertion indicator.
'stormy' is an anagram indicator.
'near' says to put letters next to each other.
'evacuated' means to remove the middle letters.
'england' with its centre removed is 'ed'.
'seas' anagrammed gives 'aess'.
'ss' put into 'aess' is 'assess'.
'assess'+'ed'='ASSESSED'
(Other definitions for assessed that I've seen before include "Appraised" , "checked out?" , "reviewed" , "Evaluated" , "Judged the worth of something" .)