Monday

It's still dark at my house

It will have to get lighter before I can think about this.

glc

Re: Monday

would this have anything to do with the sound a dog makes?

Quick he is

Sorry, no woof or the like

Ship ?

Around here shallow water boats for the rivers were bateaux. The ones made in Albany and Schenectady were very popular.

As I understand it, they may also

be barges of a type. They had crews but they mostly were assigned tasks other than sailing. They were self contained and they did get to blue water but then again so does an oil platform. It is unclear if they actually sailed to do their work as they were towed after they were ready to go to or leave port. I'll accept a barge type. Not a bateau though.

Hint. Think other sea powers than Spain or England.

Re: Monday answer

Gary got there early. With his lighter answer. He gets a gold star. The vessels were called "camels". There were two for each ship type. They were invented in the Netherlands where the mud flats were shallow and covered a great distance from open sea to deeper water at a wharf. These were floating dry docks. They were built concave on one side and flat or convex on the other with wide beam and flat bottom. They were hollow with a crew of about twenty and most of the crew was assigned a pump. The camel, loaded with water inside the hollow hull, was floated up to a ship and lines passed underneath the keel of the military or merchant vessel. The camel (fitted on the concave side to mate with any of several rates or merchant lofts) was then snugged up with lines and if the keel of the ship to be lifted was weak or damaged timbers also sometimes passed through the ships gun ports and over to the other camel. The camels were pumped free of water and the ship raised. Reports indicate that a lift could be 9 or more feet. The whole caboodle was then towed over the obstacle and guided to the wharf. There it was unloaded. To get out of the harbor the process was repeated.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

(n.)

A water-tight structure (as a large box or boxes) used to assist a vessel in passing over a shoal or bar or in navigating shallow water. By admitting water, the camel or camels may be sunk and attached beneath or at the sides of a vessel, and when the water is pumped out the vessel is lifted.

Oddly, the first patent I can find for this type of device in the U.S. is dated April 18, 1978 (it was originally to expire in 1995). US Patent 4084529 - Floating dry dock with lifting pontoons.

Re: Monday answer

Wish I had looked at this on Monday...Oliver Hazard Perry used camels to get his warships (USS Niagara and USS Lawrence) built in Presque Isle (Misery Bay) over the sand bar blocking the entrance and onto the lake other wise we might be speaking a different language here in NW PA. However in the Lake Erie case, they filled the camels with rocks to sink them and then took the rocks out using the timbers through the gunport method to lift the two ships.

Lee

"We have met the sandbar and it is ours"