A bloated criminal beneath bow of police vessel (5,4)

'vessel' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I can't tell whether this works.

'a bloated criminal beneath bow of police' is the wordplay.
'criminal' is an anagram indicator.
'beneath' means one lot of letters go next to another (in a down clue, some letters go below others).
'bow of' says to take the initial letters (front of).
The initial letter of 'police' is 'p'.
'a'+'bloated'='abloated'
'abloated' with letters rearranged gives 'edalboat'.
'edalboat' after 'p' is 'PEDAL BOAT'.

Can you help me to learn more?