Dock

a nautical term. It may refer to a deep-water wharf with facilities for loading and unloading large ships. A dry dock is an inclosure in which ships may be repaired. A ship enters dock by means of a doorway; it is then propped in an upright position; the water is allowed to run out at low tide, or else it is pumped out of the inclosure, in order that workmen may reach the hull to make repairs. A dry dock is requisite to the business of repairing ships. There are a number of docks on the Atlantic coast. The more important are located at Portland, Portsmouth, Charleston, Brooklyn, Elizabeth, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, Newport News, Norfolk, New Orleans, and Port Royal. Montreal has large new docks. On the Pacific coast there are dry docks at San Francisco and Port Orchard. That at Mare Island, near San Francisco, is 739 feet long. It is built of granite, and admits ships drawing thirty feet of water. A large number of docks are located also on the Great Lakes, as at West Superior, Marquette, Milwaukee, Chicago, Port Huron, Toledo, Cleve-land, and Buffalo. Many of these docks are of great size, several hundred feet in length. The British government and ship owners maintain docks, we may say, all over the world, for the repair of ships carying the British flag. There are docks at Gibraltar, Malta, Halifax, Bermuda, Cape of Good Hope, and Hong Kong. A dry dock at Hamburg is capable of raising a load of 35,500 tons.

The floating dock used for smaller vessels is practically a submerged raft, or jacket, into which a ship fits itself and is braced firmly in position. The water in large reservoirs is then replaced by air, causing the dock to rise and float, lifting the ship up out of the water.