Crossword clues for slipway
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Wiktionary
n. (context nautical English) A sloping surface, leading down to the shore or to a river, on which ships are built, repaired or stored and from which they are launched.
WordNet
Wikipedia
A slipway, also known as boat ramp or launch, is a ramp on the shore by which ships or boats can be moved to and from the water. They are used for building and repairing ships and boats. They are also used for launching and retrieving small boats on trailers towed by automobiles and flying boats on their undercarriage.
The nautical term ways is an alternative name for slipway. A ship undergoing construction in a shipyard is said to be on the ways. If a ship is scrapped there, she is said to be broken up in the ways.
As the word "slip" implies, the ships or boats are moved over the ramp, by way of crane or fork lift, prior to the move the vessel's hull is coated with grease, which then allows the ship or boat to "slip" off of the ramp and progress safely into the water. Slipways are used to launch (newly built) large ships, but can only dry-dock or repair smaller ships. Pulling large ships against the greased ramp would require too much force. For dry-docking large ships, one must use carriages supported by wheels or by roller-pallets. These types of dry-docking installations are called " marine railways". Nevertheless the words "slip" and "slipway" are also used for all dry-docking installations that use a ramp.
Usage examples of "slipway".
She took one more breath and stepped out again, quicker now, then made herself run head down past the bus shelter and slipway where no swans flaunted themselves today.
The instruments verified that the slipways were sufficiently intensified.
After dark the towers and slipways of its centrum flared with light, pulsed with traffic, life that the free city, largest on Asborg, drew unto itself from the whole planet and beyond.
Between the slipways and the old mooring posts where the redflapping geelies quarrelled over scraps of dying tideflower, it grew and grew.
Even the stench of the rotting tideflowers seemed appropriate as she picked her way across the ropes and slipways of the beach.
He checked his blue RDY light to the right of the heads-up display, meaning that the slipway door was open, the fuel system was depressurized, the slipway lights were on, and the system ready for refueling.
They stood down at the end of the ways where the slipway ran into the quiet Sea and talked of dreams much like the Technos had: the man spoke of the Ship for he was a pipefitter and exceedingly proud of his work.
The two slipways were left to rot, two tidal docks were allowed to silt up.
But soon other submersibles would come and she would feel the tools of man working on her steel skin again, as she had so many years ago at the great slipways of the Harland and Wolff shipbuilding firm in Belfast.
Then the craft got stuck on the slipway, and they were all heaving to get her moving the last few metres into the ocean, until, suddenly, she was afloat, and Ibra was raising the sails, and Kalal was at the prow, hidden behind the tarpaulined weight of their belongings.
Quickly he turned off down The Twitten, an alleyway that led to Snake Slipway.