foul bottom

A trip line can be used to recover the anchor from a foul bottom.

He thought the Frenchman would have a foul bottom and be badly sailed.

'Tis only foolishness to fish a net on foul bottom.

On 7 December 1941, San Francisco was in Pearl Harbor and was awaiting docking and the cleaning of her heavily fouled bottom.

Vizcaya still had two 5.5-inch guns out of commission, 80 percent of the 5.5-inch ammunition was defective, and nothing could be done under the circumstances about her terribly fouled bottom.

The Charwell had been in her wake most of the night, running seven knots in spite of her foul bottom, and now they were not much above a mile and a half apart.

The rest of the heavy cargo must go ashore before we can beach and careen her and clean her foul bottom and step the new mast and put the culver ins into her.

In mid-December 1860, Wyandotte steamed to Pensacola, Florida, and entered the drydock at Pensacola Navy Yard to have her fouled bottom scraped and to receive minor repairs.

Foul bottom - in reference to a seafloor that has poor qualities for securing an anchor, such as hard rocks, coral, wreckage, or other impedents that would make securing or unsecuring an anchor difficult or impossible.

It was noted that Vizcaya badly needed drydocking because of a badly fouled bottom, her 5.5-inch guns had defective breech mechanisms and had been supplied with defective ammunition, and the fleet had a shortage of stokers.

If only there were a breath of air from the sea,' said Canning, with his deep belly-laugh, 'I should tear your analogy limb from limb: besides, you would never have ventured upon it - a foul bottom, if ever there was one.

However, owing to the foul bottoms of the Anglo-Dutch ships the swifter French fleet escaped Rooke's pursuit and arrived safely in Toulon; thenceforth, Toulouse became the commander of the enlarged French fleet, now known as the Grand Fleet of France.