The dock was designed to handle ironclads of up to 10,000 tons and vessels longer than the dock itself. At 8,400 tons before carrying a ship, the structure needed enough strength and buoyancy to support more than 18,000 tons in service. Warrior, Black Prince, Northumberland, and Agincourt shared or assisted the towing work on different legs via Madeira. The roughly 4.8-knot Atlantic passage shows that mobile infrastructure still demanded protection, redundancy, planning, and seamanship to deploy.
Notable Point · 17:00-21:40
Towing a dock across the Atlantic
The first Bermuda dock was built to be towed to station, turning the transfer itself into a major naval operation.