I've heard rumors of Admiral Nelson using this strategy, but that's apparently been debunked. He certainly speculated that idea, despite it having been discovered before his time, and that eventually led to inspire the bouncing bombs of World War II. But it's been said that he never utilized that strategy, mostly due to ship height versus the low angle that the cannons would have to be fired at. But are there any historical accounts of this ever happening during naval warfare, despite all evidence saying it's impractical?
Mostly asking because I can only find articles about it on clickbait-y news websites that probably did no research whatsoever.
Intentionally, not that I’ve heard of. If you’ve ever tried to skip a rock across a pond, you’ll notice that if there’s any wave action at all, the rock is likely to smack into the side of a wave (or even a ripple) and sink. Wind being necessary for naval battles in the Age of Sail, this would preclude that as a strategy.
Certainly when possible it would be ideal to hit an enemy ship below its waterline, when it was heeling over, but given the range of engagements and the windage of smoothbore cannon (10-12 percent) that’s much more likely to be a lucky shot than deliberate aiming.
In the run-up to WWII, the Japanese Navy experimented with designing shells to travel underwater using a detachable pointed windscreen and flat nose cap — the idea being that “shorts” might have a chance to strike a hull and penetrate underwater. More on this here: http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-041.php
Not exactly open naval warfare, but there's a historical marker titled "Three Tiers of Firepower" at Fort Adams in Newport, Rhode Island and it discusses using the bottom level of the 3 tiers of cannons to on the west wall to skip shots across the water, trying to hit ships at or just below the water line.
https://www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=48133
https://www.hmdb.org/PhotoFullSize.asp?PhotoID=176131
This has two obvious caveats: 2) this isn't actual open sea warfare, but being fired from a land-based fort and skipped across much calmer harbor waters, and 2) while we're told they practiced these shots, Fort Adams never fired these guns on any actual enemy in anger.