Dock (maritime)

Information about Dock (maritime)

St Petersburg Docks in the early morning smog.

A dock (from Dutch 'dok') is a man-made feature involved in the handling of boats or ships. However the exact meaning varies between different variants of the English language.

British English

In British English, a dock is an enclosed area of water used for loading, unloading, building or repairing ships. Such a dock may be created by building enclosing harbour walls into an existing natural water space, or by excavation within what would otherwise be dry land.

There are two specific elaborations of the dock:

Impounded docks are a variant in which the water is impounded either by dock gates or by a lock, thus allowing ships to remain afloat at low tide in places with high tidal ranges.
Dry docks are a variant, also with dock gates, which can be emptied of water to allow investigation and maintenance of the underwater parts of ships.

A dockyard consists of one or more docks, usually with other structures.

American English

Small wooden docks can be constructed with few tools and minimal materials.

In American English, a dock is technically synonymous with pier or wharf—any human-made structure in the water intended for people to be on. However, in modern use, pier is generally used to refer to structures originally intended for industrial use, such as seafood processing or shipping, and more recently for cruise ships, and dock is used for most everything else, often with a qualifier, such as ferry dock, swimming dock, etc. However, pier is also commonly used to refer to wooden or metal structures that extend into the ocean from beaches and are used, for the most part, to accommodate fishing in the ocean without using a boat.

In American English, the term for the water area between piers is 'slip'.

In the cottage country of Canada and the United States, a dock is a wooden platform built over water with one end secured to the shore. The platform is used for boarding and off loading small boats.

lock is a device for raising and lowering boats between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. The distinguishing feature of a lock is a fixed chamber whose water level can be varied; whereas in a caisson lock, a boat lift, or on a canal inclined
..... Click the link for more information.

Tides are the cyclic rising and falling of Earth's ocean surface caused by the tidal forces of the Moon and the Sun acting on the oceans. More generally, tidal phenomena can occur in any object that is subjected to a gravitational field that varies in time and space, such as the
..... Click the link for more information.

drydock is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Drydocks are used for the construction, maintenance, and repair of ships, boats, and other watercraft.
..... Click the link for more information.

Shipyards and dockyards are places which repair and build ships. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance and basing activities than shipyards, which are sometimes
..... Click the link for more information.

American English (AmE, AE, AmEng, USEng, en-US), also known as United States English or U.S. English, is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States.
..... Click the link for more information.

pier is a raised walkway over water, supported by widely spread piles or pillars. The lighter structure of a pier allows tides and currents to flow almost unhindered, whereas the more solid foundations of a quay or the closely-spaced piles of a wharf can act as breakwaters, and are
..... Click the link for more information.

wharf is a fixed platform, commonly on pilings, where ships are loaded and unloaded. They often serve as interim storage areas with warehouses, since the typical objective is to unload and reload vessels as quickly as possible.
..... Click the link for more information.

Seafood is any sea animal or seaweed that is served as food or is suitable for eating, particularly seawater animals, such as fish and shellfish (including mollusks and crustaceans).
..... Click the link for more information.

Shipping is physical process of transporting goods and cargo. Virtually every product ever made, bought, or sold has been affected by shipping. Despite the many variables in shipped products and locations, there are only three basic types of shipments: land, air, and sea.
..... Click the link for more information.

A cruise ship or a cruise liner is a passenger ship used for pleasure voyages, where the voyage itself and the ship's amenities are considered an essential part of the experience.
..... Click the link for more information.

Hong Kong China Ferry Terminal (Chinese: 中國客運碼頭 or 中港碼頭) is a ferry terminal, located at China Hong Kong City, 33 Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
..... Click the link for more information.

Slip may refer to:

Packing slip, a shipping document that accompanies delivery packages
Slipway, a ramp on the shore by which ships or boats can be moved to and from the water
Ferry slip, a specialized docking facility that receives a ferryboat

..... Click the link for more information.

This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims.

Please help Wikipedia by adding references. See the for details.
This article has been tagged since September 2007.

..... Click the link for more information.

This page is currently protected from editing until disputes have been resolved.
Protection is not an endorsement of the current [ version] ([ protection log]).
..... Click the link for more information.

Motto
"In God We Trust" (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum" ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
..... Click the link for more information.

harbor or harbour (see spelling differences), or haven, is a place where ships may shelter from the weather or are stored. Harbors can be man-made or natural. A man-made harbor will have sea walls or breakwaters and may require dredging.
..... Click the link for more information.

marina is a port within a sheltered harbour where boats and yachts are kept in the water and where services geared to the needs of recreational boating are found.

The marina may have re-fueling, washing and repair facilities, small stores and restaurants catering to the
..... Click the link for more information.

Ski Dock (n.)

A Ski Dock is a fixed platform, commonly on pilings, roughly parallel to and alongside navigable water, where ships are loaded and unloaded.
..... Click the link for more information.

This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.

Herod_Archelaus

iPedia Free Information Center