Dry dock

“ A dry dock difiers from an ordinary dock only in the fact that it is smaller, and provided with machinery for pumping out the water in order that the vessel may be repaired. All injuries suffered by the hulls of vessels below the water line, by collision or stranding, must necessarily be repaired in a dry dock, to prevent the inflow of water, but it has never been supposed, and it is believed the proposition is now for the first time made, that such repairs were made on land. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the men and their turmoil had disappeared, Madden remained on deck, filled with a dull, heavy feeling of lassitude and bitterness. It was one of those moments when a man's hope is swamped in present difficulties.
The sun swung slowly down into the western sea, and its reflections made long blinding streaks in the Sargasso. Its yellow light transformed the great red dock into an orange structure that rested on the sea as lightly as the pavilions of the evening clouds. ”

“ Or, suppose such repairs were made in a floating dry dock, as sometimes happens, would they be considered as made upon land or water? Or, suppose they were made in dry dock upon a seagoing vessel?
There is no doubt of the proposition that a dry dock itself is not a subject of salvage service or of admiralty jurisdiction, because it is not used for the purpose of navigation. ”

“ There are two kinds of docks, dry-docks and wet-docks. The former are used for receiving ships in order to their being inspected and repaired. For this purpose the dock must be so contrived that the water may be admitted or excluded at pleasure, so that a vessel can be floated in when the tide is high, and that the water may run out with the fall of the tide, or be pumped out, the closing of the gates preventing its return. Wet-docks are formed for the purpose of keeping vessels always afloat.... ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even with a fairly heavy sea running, a damaged and leaking vessel can be brought upon the dock where its weight, added to that of the dock itself, makes the combined structure additionally stiff, so that the necessary repairs can be undertaken in safety as soon as the vessel is lifted, and with as much ease as if the dock and its burden were in still water. Floating docks also can be used at any state of the tide, but he would be a rash man who attempted to warp a vessel into an ordinary dry dock with the tide running past the entrance with any degree of strength. ”

“ Out on the wharf a double "hoister," working by steam, and able to pick up and swing a hundred tons, is used in handling the materials of the works. The dry-docks are, in winter, a singular spectacle. They are a vast hospital of interesting invalids, the patients being steamers, barges and canal-boats. For instance, the old Edwin Forrest, which has paddled up the Delaware with excursionists since a time whereof the mind of man runneth not to the contrary, comes up into the dry-dock complaining of its bunions. ”

“ That, whereas, the Navy Department has decided to lengthen the said dry dock from six hundred (600) feet, as called for in the specifications forming a part of the contract for the construction of a dry dock at the above-mentioned location, entered into by the above-mentioned parties of the first and second parts on the 17th of November, 1892, to six hundred and seventy (670) feet from the outer gate sill to the coping at the head of the dock. ”

“ No dry dock can take a vessel larger than itself, and in reckoning the dimensions of a dock for receiving purposes it must be remembered that its cill is a fixture, that the width of the entrance at the cill must not be made greater than the strength of the structure will permit, and that though a dock may in other respects be able to receive a vessel it cannot do so if that vessel through any mishap should draw as much water as that at depth of cill, or if in heeling over, its bilges should be wider than the width of the dock entrance. ”

“ A fixed structure, such as this dry-dock is, not used for the purpose of navigation, is not a subject of salvage service, any more than is a wharf or a warehouse when projecting into or upon the water. The fact that it floats on the water does not make it a ship or vessel, and no structure that is not a ship or vessel is a subject of salvage. A ferry-bridge is generally a floating structure, hinged or chained to a wharf. ”

“ Madden caught it and his toil was over. A moment later another sailor, of distinct Irish physiognomy, dropped down a rope ladder to the boat. They paid the sweating boatman a double fare, climbed up and hoisted their bags with the line.
Only when on board did the lads appreciate the enormous size of the dock. It would have been impossible to throw a baseball from one end to the other. The black sides rose above them like an iron canyon. Ranging down these precipices were innumerable huge iron stanchions for the shoring of ocean liners. ”

“ A dry-dock is usually constructed with gates, to admit or shut out the tide. When a ship arrives from a long voyage, and needs repair to the lower part of her hull, she must be got out of the water somehow or other. ”

“ The breeze was such a rarity in the becalmed region that the two paused now and then to take long grateful breaths, and to watch the little wind waves ripple the glassy Sargasso lanes.
As they walked, navvies came out with buckets brushes and set to work painting the maze of iron stanchions that lined the long interior of the dock.
“I'm afraid I'll have to stop that painting,” remarked Leonard after watching them a moment.
“They'll be very glad of it—but why?”
“It consumes too much energy. The men can live on less if they quit work.” ”

“ The deck, rails, cabin walls, ports, hoods, joists of the top-deck were newly washed and scrupulously clean. Fifty yards up-deck, where perspective and the sheer of the ship gave the promenade the appearance of a long, up-curved tunnel, the boys caught sight of a gang of men scrubbing down deck. A little beyond the scrubbing gang, some garments fluttered on a line drying in the night air.
As they drew nearer, Madden perceived they were muscular men, with faces bronzed by tropic sunshine. Some of their necks and cheeks were peeling, as if from sunburn. ”

“ Then Charlie’s Daddy said, “Well, unless some rain comes to make the brook get deeper, I guess you’ll have to wait to sail your boat till you come back to town and can sail it in the bath tub. As long as you are in the country you will have to say that the boat is in ‘dry dock.’”
But what do you think? Charlie didn’t even know what a dry dock is. No, his Daddy had to explain to him all about it—how [90] the ship is put into “dry dock” when it has to be mended or painted below the water line. ”

“ Watch the mooring lines when coaling under the chutes—take in the slack as necessary.
Entering Dry Dock. When a vessel is about to enter a dry dock the heads of the various departments should be notified in time, and should be informed of the probable length of stay in the dock.
Also notify U. S. Local Inspectors that vessel will go in dock and bottom can be examined.
All refuse should be put ashore, and provision made for taking care of any that may accumulate while on the dock. ”

“ This causes the dry dock to come once more to the surface, and as it rises beneath the ship the keel blocks press up on the ship’s keel, shores or bilge blocks are put in place, and when the ponderous float regains the surface there is the ship, high and dry, where men can scrape and paint and repair her or accomplish the other tasks assigned to them. ”

“ Dry′-dock, a dock which can be laid dry by dock-gates, pumping, &c.—also called Grav′ing-dock, because suitable for cleaning or graving the sides and bottoms of ships; Float′ing-dock, a dock which floats in the water, but can by pumping out its hollow sides be raised high in the water with any ship that has been floated into it, and then emptied of water by further pumping ”

“ This term—Wet Dock—did not originate, (as has been erroneously opined by the otherwise learned Bardoldi) ; from the fact, that persons falling into one, never escaped without a soaking; but it is simply used, in order to distinguish these docks from the Dry-Dock, where the bottoms of ships are repaired.
The first dock built by the town was the “Old Dock,” alluded to in my Sunday stroll with my guide-book. This was erected in 1710, since which period has gradually arisen that long line of dock-masonry, now flanking the Liverpool side of the Mersey. ”

“ Floating docks themselves are in occasional need of repair, and when it was found that they could be constructed of a greater size than any then existing dry dock, it being customary to dry dock them for repair, the necessity arose of devising a means whereby the repairs could be made without taking the floating dock out of the water. Sometimes a dock can be tilted endways or sideways as occasion requires, for a portion of its under-water surface to be exposed, but there is obviously a limit to this operation and to the effectiveness with which work under these conditions can be carried out. ”

“ The nerves of the crew frayed out in the heat. By night they slept amid tantalizing dreams of food; by day they sprawled in dreary silences under awnings which held heat like sweat boxes. The high metal walls of the dock caught the sun's rays and threw out a furnace heat. The men endured it in net undershirts clinging to dripping bodies; their eyes ached against the glare, their stomachs rebelled, their brains sickened with monotony and despair.
The men developed little personal traits that exasperated their mates unreasonably. ”

“ Great Britain, though a large builder and the principal designer of floating docks, does not possess very many; possibly the number and excellence of the dry docks scattered round her coasts may be the explanation. But as dry docks are costly to make or alter, the British Admiralty has ordered the construction at Wallsend of a floating dock which will take the largest battleship afloat or likely to be built for some years to come. In anticipation of the possible needs of the mercantile marine, plans have been prepared for a floating dock with a lifting power of 45,000 tons. ”

“ In 1907 the construction of a new dock was undertaken, to cover 16 acres, with a depth of 40 ft. below low water. There are also two coal barge docks capable of floating 10,000 tons of coal at one time. There are five dry docks, having from 29 ft. to 12 ft. depth of water over blocks at neaps. The Prince of Wales, or No. 5 dry dock, opened in 1895, was at that time the largest single dock in the world; it is 750 ft. long by 871/2 ft. wide at sill, and 112 ft. at cope level. In 1905 a sixth graving dock was opened, having a length of 8751/4 ft., and a width of 90 ft. at sill and 125 ft. ”

“ Leonard, whose spirits naturally mounted with the sun, found it hard to continue the three days' silence. He wanted to talk about the splendid English coast with its gemlike villages set in green, the red-sailed fishing smacks, the social gulls feeding in the long trail behind the dock. It is difficult to be reserved under such conditions. Then, too, Caradoc was so obviously ill, Madden felt sorry for the fellow. ”

“ To avoid this waste of our resources it is proposed to add to our navy-yard here a dock within which our present vessels may be laid up dry and under cover from the sun. Under these circumstances experience proves that works of wood will remain scarcely at all affected by time. The great abundance of running water which this situation possesses, at heights far above the level of the tide, if employed as is practiced for lock navigation, furnishes the means for raising and laying up our vessels on a dry and sheltered bed. ”

“ The long arms of the shoring stanchions smote the walls in a kind of terrific anvil chorus to the blaring orchestra of the tempest. The joints of the three huge pontoons sounded as if they were being rent asunder every moment. One minute the great structure would rise dizzily, high into the black blast, a skyscraper flung up on a mountain Madden could look far below on the lights of the struggling Vulcan. Up there the storm yelled and screamed at every corner and brace of the weltering dock, and wrenched at the midget helmsman. ”

“ There are eight docks supplied with timber ponds, quays, warehouses and other accommodation. The depth of water is 21 or 22 ft. at high water, spring tides. Chief exports are coal, stone, woollen goods and machinery; imports, butter, fruit, indigo, logwood, timber and wool. Industries include the manufacture of alum, sugar, rope and agricultural instruments, and iron-founding. Shipbuilding is also carried on, and there is a large dry dock and a patent slip for repairing vessels. ”