Transactions (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: May 2nd, 1881. CHAELES HOKSLEY, President, In The Chaib. ON FLOATING DOCKS. ?THE DEPOSITING DOCK AND THE DOUBLE-POWER DOCK. By John Standfield, M.I.C.E. The great difficulty experienced in the provision of dry dock accommodation, even where urgently required, has always been the immense amount of the first outlay which has to be incurred. Dry docks have generally been constructed by engineers accustomed to build works in stone and concrete; their enormous cost has been regarded as unavoidable, and therefore their provision has been undertaken only where there has been much shipping to be accommodated. There are, however, many ports where dry docks would be profitable if they could be provided at half the cost of a stone or concrete dock. Messrs. Clark and Standfield have consequently given the subject of docking accommodation special attention, and, having had the advantage of large experience, have designed docks which can be built at a much lower cost than has been hitherto considered possible. The positions and circumstances under which dry docks are required are very variable; the vessels to be docked may be large and heavy, or small; the docks may have to be placed either in exposed or in sheltered positions; they may be required in a strong current or in quiet water; in places where there is a great rise and fall of tide, or in a harbour where there is nearly a constant water level; the number of vessels to be docked may be very great, or provision for a single vessel at a time may be sufficient. All these opposite requirements are fulfilled either by the depositing dock or by the double-power dock. There are various forms of floating docks now in use. One of the largest and best known is the Bermuda Dock, constructed in 1869; this has a flat bottom and curv...