I believe you are mostly referring to the Freedom built by Martin. As I have reported previously on FR, they did a (beyond) terrible job. If it weren’t for their political clout they would not have been keel holed rather than given a new contract.
The Independence (designed by Astral) however is far and way a superior ship with only the usual amount of prototype problems.
Never to pick at a fellow Freeper too vigorously, I believe the word you are looking for is “keel-hauled”, a particularly gruesome act of punishment whereby the offending sailor would have stout ropes attached to two extremities (wrists or ankles) then be thrown off the bow and ‘hauled along the keel’ by sailors port and starboard until he reached the stern whereupon what was left of the sailor was pull back aboard. If the offending seaman didn’t drown it was most likely that his back would be torn to shreds on the barnacles attached to the hull.