Mor Temor

2.22 Floating docks, piers, berths and container terminals

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There are in existence many floating docks, piers and wharves. For example, the 124 m x 109 m floating dock in Texas Shipyard built by Bethlehem Marine Construction Group in 1985. Floating structures are ideal for piers and wharves as the ships can come alongside them since their positions are constant with respect to the waterline. An example of a floating pier is the one located at Ujina Port, Hiroshima (see Fig. 47). The floating pier is 150 m x 30 m x 4 m. Vancouver has also a floating pier designed for car ferries. Car ferry piers must allow smooth loading and unloading of cars and the equal tidal rise and fall of the pier and ferries is indeed advantageous for this purpose. A floating type pier was also designed for berthing the 50000 ton container ships at Valdez, Alaska. The floating structure was adopted due to the great water depth  (Watanabi, 2004).

 Fig. 47 Floating Pier at Ujina, Japan.

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