Foundering.

This is coolbert:

Here two instances of warships not even able to make one voyage without sinking.

1. USS Guitarro. American nuclear powered attack submarine having been launched but sinking while at dock, construction crews to blame, the ship settling to the bottom without even having left port on a single occasion.

This particular web site with lots of images devoted to the sinking, raising and placing back into action the Guitarro that process a major construction project just unto itself.

The nuclear reactor and fuel having NOT having been installed or the vessel carrying any weaponry, catastrophic disaster even beyond a sinking averted, but perhaps only slightly less so humiliating.

Guitarro successfully raised from the bottom, cleaned, restored to fighting trim and sailing in an admirable manner for thirty years subsequent, unfazed it seems by the experience.

Immersion total in salt water for any period of time especially destructive to any and all electronic gear, I cannot even imagine what would have occurred to the nuclear reactor if in place.

2. Vasa. Swedish naval vessel, a sailing warship from the old school and at the time of construction [1626] perhaps the most powerful warship [?] in the world. Foundering and sinking on the maiden voyage, not able to sail even a slight distance from port.

Again, the humiliation most great, recovery to the extent of removing from the bottom bronze cannon property of the Swedish King a paramount issue, the ship not until the latter half of the last century [20th]  resurrected and brought back to the surface NOW that most important tourist attraction in all of Sweden.

"Vasa (or Wasa) is a Swedish warship built 1626-1628. The ship foundered and sank after sailing less than a nautical mile (ca 2 km) into its maiden voyage on 10 August 1628."

"A wind stronger than a breeze" and that was that.

You would have thought even at the time of the Vasa naval architects and construction crews would have all the protocols and procedures worked out and honed to fine technique devoid of any possible failure.

That was evidently not so!! 

coolbert.