The etymology of docking leads us to a word of Arabic that can be translated as “factory house” or “house of industry”. The term refers to the sector of a port that has some kind of guard built artificially to favor anchoring of boats and to facilitate the tasks of loading and unloading goods.
The etymological root alludes to the first docks being docks where the manufacture and repair of the boats took place. Over time these artificial guards began to be used in different ways.
Precisely because of these coincidences in the first versions of docks, confusions arose between the two concepts, which are often presented today. To understand the differences between the two, let’s first look at a brief definition of the term pier.
The name of the pier is known as the construction that is carried out in the water to allow boaters to dock the boats and ships, that is, to arrive between them or to the mainland, for the purpose of carrying out their different loading and unloading activities, which may involve both goods and passengers, as the case may be.
The construction of a pier can be done using various materials, including wood, brick and stone. With regard to the medium in which it is carried out, the most frequent are a river, a lake or the sea, and it is entrenched in its bed through bases that act as firm bras.
Returning to the concept of dock, it resembles that of dock in several aspects: both are built artificially, and in waters used for navigation; both facilitate loading and unloading tasks essential in many port activities; Both allow boats to be comfortably launtby on the mainland. A key term in this context is a decay,which is what is called the place where the ships give end, that is, where they are secured by making use of anchors; both the dock and the dock are designed with this action.
It is known as dársena de ciaboga to the one that is intended precisely for the ciaboga,the operation that consists in completely reversing the sense of the ship,that is, rotate it 180 degrees in its vertical axis. The space required for this manoeuvre varies depending on the method applied, which may involve the use of machines such as tugs or those of the ship itself, along with its anchors. In order to find this measure, it is necessary to properly study the maximum area occupied by all the machines used during the ciaboga, also taking into account issues that make to the characteristics of the water.
Modern ports often have several docks. In this way, the boats that arrive find facilities for their operations. For example: “Port authorities announced that the dredging of the docks will begin next month, “A Navy diver found the victim’s body this morning in the south dock of the port”, “The young man fell into the river from a dock and had to be rescued by the crew of the cruiser”.
The concept of dock is also used to name the surface that allows parking cars and other vehicles to be loaded and unloaded in a shopping centre, an airport, a railway station, a bus terminal, etc.: “You can’t park here: this dock is exclusive for taxis”, “The bus entered the dock at high speed and ended up crashing into a column”, “Please don’t approach the dock until the dock vehicle is completely stopped”.