Entomology and origins of phrase "Copper Plated Bitch"

I feel OK with "A Copper Plated Bitch" being a lousy handling sailing Navy Ship. Sometimes also a merchant ship. They tried to use bronze nails, but they were not always available, thus the copper peeling off. Copper also had the ability to "disappear" from the bottom because of its $value$.

Forgot to mention the supposed speed advantage a clean copper bottom gave sailing vessels. Might be. Yep....very important in a long stern chase. If was found out later that a "weeded" copper bottom still maintained some speed advantage over a equally weeded painted or tarred wood bottom. Seems the copper created a "boundary layer" smoothing the bottom.

I am not sure Paul Revere supplied the copper bottom for the USS Constitution, but off hand I can not remember where from England the copper came from. It was always melted down and recycled if possible. Way too expensive to waste. We can not today build a real duplicate wood navy vessel. We have lost that technology. Great subject. HB of CJ (old coot)

WOW!!! I am now a Lieutenant Commander so there!!! "... Salute ....Too"!!! Wow...we sure do promote quick in this outfit. They will promote anybody also!