How ships were moved inside dockyard basins

Were ships moved around dockyard basins by tugboats or under their own power?

Both were possible, but confined basins often used tugboats, shore locomotives, or winches to move ships as slowly and safely as possible.

Some large basins had room for tugboats to position a vessel, but tighter dockyards used shore machinery instead. Small steam locomotives, capstans, or winches could haul a ship along carefully arranged lines from the quay. Operators wanted controlled movement rather than high power because a heavy hull had little room to recover from a mistake. The method also let an incomplete or disabled ship move without relying on its own engines. These slow, deliberate movements are the practical work hidden behind a dockyard plan.