Dockyard

“ There are large and numerous wharves and quays, fitted with steam cranes, and connected by a railway with the workshops, which contain all the most modern machinery and engines. The dockyard, and in fact a considerable portion of the town, is supplied with fresh water conveyed by pipes from a spring about four miles to the north. There is a smaller dock for torpedo boats, and a torpedo depôt on shore where those weapons can be tested and regulated. ”

“ A bold sea stretches out on one side of the road, and the mountain on the other. Amongst other things which attracted my attention at Simon's Town was the Dockyard, which embraces about a mile of the foreshore, and contains appliances for repairing modern war vessels, a repairing and victualling depôt, and a patent slip, capable of lifting vessels of aboutPg 17 900 tons displacement. ”

“ If by any arrangement or rearrangement of stay, stanchion, davit, steam-pipe, bridge, boat-chocks, or hatchway she can, in their judgment, be improved, rest assured that the dockyard will know it by letter and voice. She never gets more than half what she wants, and so is careful to apply for thrice her needs. ”

“ Docks [328] also might have been made in the bay to the westward, although it would have involved the removal of the custom house, which would, however, be a great improvement. The naval dockyard and Admiralty are close by, and, in fact, form part of the west side of Blackhorse Square. It is a miserable place, and consists of a dry dock, two or three building slips, with a ropery, and some warehouses, all in the most antique fashion, and supplied with cranes, tools, &c., of the last century. In fact, it required to be wholly remodelled and removed to the bay above mentioned. ”

“ The first dockyard at Chatham for the service of the navy was established by Queen Elizabeth. It was situated higher up the river than the present yard, on a narrow slip of land, and had only one dock. In 1622 a new dock-yard was formed by James I., and the site of the old one, which was too circumscribed for the service of the increasing navy, was assigned to the Board of Ordnance. In the reign of Charles I., additional dry-docks and building-slips were formed and several store-houses erected. ”

“ He [165] had adopted this kind of construction with perfect success at the docks at Great Grimsby, in Lincolnshire, and they succeeded equally well at Sheerness, although exposed to much greater difficulties. The dockyard as completed consists of one basin of nearly 3 acres, at the east end of which are three docks for first-rate vessels of war, with a depth of 9 feet at low water of spring tides, the basin being of the same depth, so that with a rise of tide of 18 feet at spring tides the largest vessels can always be docked at those times. ”

“ The chief function of a dockyard is the building and maintaining of ships in efficiency. The constructive work is carried out under the care of the chief constructor of the yard, in accordance with plans sent down from the admiralty. The calculations for displacement, involving the draught of water forward and aft, have already been made, and, in order to ensure accuracy in the carrying out of the design, an admirable system has been devised for weighing everything that is built into the new ships or that goes on board ”

“ The harbour is very fine, and would hold as large a fleet as ever put to sea. The naval dockyard is also a handsome establishment, and it is the chief naval station in British North America. As it is completely open to the influence of the sea air, its anchorage is very seldom blocked up by ice. It is altogether an important place, and would become still more important in war-time.
As soon as we had dropped our anchor, Captain Gale, taking me with him to carry his papers and other articles, went on shore to find out the owners of the Dolphin. ”

“ The chiefs of the constructive and engineering departments are responsible for the building of ships and machinery, and for the maintenance of the hulls and machinery of existing vessels; while the works department has charge of all work on the quays, docks, &c., in the dockyard and port. A great advance has been made in increasing the efficiency and capabilities of the imperial dockyards by introducing a system of continuous work in the building of new ships and effecting alterations in others, and German material is exclusively used. ”

“ The keys of the dock-yard, with the attendance of the officers was forthwith procured; the spars for making the topsail yards were got upon the quarter-deck, and the carpenters of the ship employed in making them. Before daylight [377] great progress was made in rigging the ship. The artificers of the dock-yard now came on board, and caulking and other repairs went on rapidly. By five o’clock in the evening the ship began to warp down to the entrance of the harbour, and as no powder could be received on board while in the dockyard, the launch was sent to receive it at the magazine ”

“ This dockyard for the construction of ships primarily intended for revenue service, was at first erected between the fort of la Fuerza and la Contaduria (office of the accountant or auditor of the exchequer) , because that location offered great facilities to lower the vessels directly from the rocks to the sea. ”

“ DOCKYARDS. In the fullest meaning of the word, a “dock-yard” (or “navy yard” in America) is a government establishment where warships of every kind are built and repaired, and supplied with the men and stores required to maintain them in a state of efficiency for war. ”

“ The system of conducting business at the dockyards is analogous to that which prevails at the admiralty. There is personal communication between the officers responsible for the work, and facilities are afforded for coming to rapid decisions upon matters that are in hand, and the operations are conducted with an ease which contributes much to efficiency. ”

“ A floating dry dock, as its name makes clear, floats on the water, the vessel resting on the bottom of the dry dock after the water has been removed. (2) A graven dry dock is dug into the land. The vessel floats in but rests on land once the water has been pumped out. (3) Finally there is the marine railway, on which the vessel is drawn out of the water, instead of the water being drawn away from the vessel. A ship is no more and no less on land when it rests in a graven dry dock than when it rests on a marine railway. ”

“ Into a little-used dock space remote from harbour traffic she is put aside—out of date and duty, surging at her rusted moorings when the dock gates are swung apart and laden steamships pass out on the road she may no longer travel. The days pass—the weeks—the months; the tide ebbs, and comes again; fair winds carry but trailing smoke-wrack to the rim of a far horizon; head winds blow the sea mist in on her—but she lies unheeding. ”

“ An enormous floating dry dock, towed by an ocean-going tug, slowly drew away from the ship yards on the south bank of the Thames, just below London. The men on the immense metal structure, hauling in ropes, looked like spiders with gossamers. A hundred foot bridge which could be lifted for the entrance of ocean liners, spanned the open stern of the dock and braced her high side walls. ”

“ Down the deserted wind-swept streets we drive steadily on, till house lights glinting behind the blinds and hurrying figures of a 'night-shift' show that we are near the river and the docks. A turn along the waterside, the dim outlines of the ships and tracery of mast and spar looming large and fantastic in the darkness, and the driver, questioning, brings up at a dim-lit shed, bare of goods and cargo—the berth of a full-laden outward-bounder. My barque—the Florence, of Glasgow—lies in a corner of the dock, ready for sea. ”

“ The dry-dock accommodates a ship as long as three hundred and forty feet, and is one hundred feet across. The gouty steamer potters comfortably in, and lays up its tired keel, while the dock is being discharged, as serenely as a patient who lays his foot on the knee of a corn-doctor: in due time, relieved and sound, the invalid is ready to take the stage of life again. Another boat comes in to be lengthened: it has growing-pains, and wants assistance. The stern is sliced off, the keel is spliced, and the adolescent leaves the docks longer by twenty feet. ”

“ The docks on the Middlesex side of the river, which are used for the reception and unlading of timber-ships, are the West India and the Regent’s Dock, or the entrance to the Regent’s Canal.
The number of wood-laden ships that have entered the three principal docks for the last ten years is given below. I am informed by Mr. Jones of the Commercial Docks, that for every ship above 100 tons six men are required to sort and pile away. Rafting from ships of the above burden requires one or two men daily, according to circumstances. ”

“ It is interesting to watch the labours of a crew of workmen in a dry dock. If a ship looks large in the water, it looks startlingly gigantic in a dry dock, especially if one walks down to the dock floor and views the high bow or the overhanging stern from the level of the keel. Propellers from a distance look small, but with half-a-dozen men realigning their blades or working about them, they look huge indeed. ”

“ Yet even I have seen the bowsprits and jib-booms of the Australian packets diminish down the quays of the East Dock as an arcade; and of that West Dock there is a boy who well remembers its quays buried under the largess of the tropics and the Spanish Main, where now, through the colonnades of its warehouse supports, the vistas are empty. Once you had to squeeze sideways through the stacked merchandise. There were huge hogsheads of sugar and hillocks of coconuts. Molasses and honey escaped to spread a viscid carpet which held your feet. ”

“ We call it lightening a ship when she is laden too heavy, and draws too much water to enter the docks. In such a case we generally begin discharging the timber or deals in the river, either off Deptford or Blackwall, according as the ship may be for the docks on the Middlesex or Surrey side. In the river we discharge the deals into lighters, whereas when the ship is in the dock we generally discharge along a stage on to the shore. ”

“ They wandered down the wrong wharf amidst the slime cast up by the fishing craft moored in the dock below, and made their way over heaps of chains and cordage, and through the hand-carts pushed hither and thither with their loads of fish, and so struggled back to the avenue which ran along the top of all the wharves. The water of the docks was of a livid turbidity, which teemed with the gelatinous globes of the sun-fish; and people were rowing about there in pleasure-boats, and sailors on floats were painting the hulls of the black ships. ”

“ His way now led towards the river-side regions, and a cleansing whiff of tar was to be detected in the stagnant autumn air. Men with the blue jersey and peaked cap of the boatman, or the white ducks of the dockers, began to replace the corduroys and fustian of the laborers. Shops with nautical instruments in the windows, rope and paint sellers, and slop shops with long rows of oilskins dangling from hooks, all proclaimed the neighborhood of the docks. ”

“ This is the dark side of the Dock-labourer's story. It has a brighter and better one inside, where on miles and miles of wharf hundreds of men, package- and bale-laden, are hurrying to and fro, stowing the produce of the world in shed after shed. Thousands of barrels of sugar are lying in one, and the air is perfectly sweet with it. The ground is treacly with it, and one's boots are saturated with it as one walks through a thick slime of what looks like toffee gone wrong in a sweetstuff window on a hot summer day. ”

“ The dock, if it could be commenced upon this moderate scale, could not, it is true, have been considered as a powerful rival to the other dock establishments, but it would have relieved them from the greatest part of the lumber trade, which they could not accommodate without great inconvenience and even loss, such as the timber, guano, hemp, flax, coal trades, &c.; moreover, it would give accommodation for laying up in ordinary the great number of vessels which are always more or less unemployed in the port of London. ”

“ As might be expected there are many reefs and ledges within the harbour, but they are easily seen from aloft when coming in, and the central anchorage, into which a vessel must needs be warped by kedges, is a natural dock with an almost level bottom of ten fathoms depth, secure from every wind that blows and with splendid holding ground. ”

“ Katherine's Docks and the London Docks, magnificent undertakings answering to the need of their time. The same may be said of the other artificial lakes full of ships that go in and out upon this high road to all parts of the world. The labour of the imperial waterway goes on from generation to generation, goes on day and night. Nothing ever arrests its sleepless industry but the coming of a heavy fog, which clothes the teeming stream in a mantle of impenetrable stillness. ”

“ The premises were next the dry dock on the opposite side of the waterfront. Dark, dingy, huge, lacking paint and adequate windows, the place was impressive only because of the vast quantities of merchandise it stored.
Huge butts of rum and brandy, seven feet in diameter, nearly all on tap, lay in the darkest regions. Piles of rope, mountains of paint tins, great anchors, barrels of tar, ochre, bales of oakum, etc., filled another section, and still another part of the premises was given up to lighter articles such as soap, tobacco, ship's biscuit, cheese, and margarine. ”