The Collaborative International Dictionary
Fother \Foth"er\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Fothered; p. pr. & vb.
n. Fothering.] [Cf. Fodder food, and G. f["u]ttern,
futtern, to cover within or without, to line. [root]75.]
To stop (a leak in a ship at sea) by drawing under its bottom
a thrummed sail, so that the pressure of the water may force
it into the crack.
--Totten.
Wiktionary
vb. (present participle of fother English)
Wikipedia
Fothering refers in nautical contexts to covering a leak in a ship with a sail containing rope fibres to prevent it from sinking after being damaged. This was the technique used to help to refloat HMS Endeavour after she went aground on the Great Barrier Reef on 11 June 1770.
Later, and more efficiently, a sail closely thrummed with yarns was used.
Usage examples of "fothering".
The leak gained on them as the oakum of the first successful fothering worked through the leak, and the passing of a new sail was a slow, exhausting business that had little evident result: the Leopard drove eastward and a little south under small sail in a rising wind, pumping day and night.
Jack had been at the pumps all the time he could spare from the lightening of the ship and all the fothering: his leg had not allowed him to move about nearly as much as he wished and he had had to rely on Grant for much of the work and many of the instant decisions.
After an indefinite period Stephen noticed that they had prepared another sail for fothering the ship, and that they were going through the same laborious motions of passing it under her bottom, a long, tedious operation with innumerable orders roaring over the grind of the pumps.
We just finished fothering it with a sail"—that meant sliding a sail over the hole as a canvas patch—"but a lot of the seams are sprung, and we're still taking on water.
His Lordship's gloom seemed justified for, despite the fothering and the pumping, the condition of the damaged frigate seemed to be suddenly worsening.
The captured frigate's hull was so fouled by damage and by fothering, and her upperworks so feebly rigged, that the ship would probably be pushed backward by the opposition of even the most feeble ebbing current.
And luckily the weather, though as foul as can be imagined, was not cold: luckily, for all the beds aboard Surprise had to be stuffed into those shocking started butts, where the sea came pouring in for the first two days, in spite of all the fothering in the world.