A turning basin, winding basin or swinging basin is a wider body of water, either located at the end of a ship canal or in a

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manch ...

to allow

cargo ship A cargo ship or freighter is a merchant ship that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's List of seas, seas and Ocean, oceans each year, handling the bulk of international trade. ...

s to turn and reverse their direction of travel, or to enable long narrow barges in a

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface ...

to turn a sharp corner. For a complete 180-degree turnaround, the width of the basin must be more than the length of the longest vessel normally traversing the

waterway A waterway is any Navigability, navigable body of water. Broad distinctions are useful to avoid ambiguity, and disambiguation will be of varying importance depending on the nuance of the equivalent word in other ways. A first distinction is ...

. Onboard

bow thruster Manoeuvering thrusters (bow thrusters and stern thrusters) are transversal propulsion devices built into or mounted to either the Bow (watercraft), bow or stern (front or back, respectively) of a ship or boat to make it more manoeuvrable. Bow th ...

s or

tugboat A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, suc ...

s may assist in manoeuvering the ship. Turning basin Gdynia

In seaports the turning basin is often not a real physical basin, but a designated area in the harbour basin where turning is possible and mooring is prohibited. In the example from Gdynia the plan is to enlarge the existing turning basin by removing a part of an existing quay (shown in red in the image).

Dimensions

PIANC guideline 141 recommends a turning basin diameter for channels of 1.2 times the ship's length; in China, twice the ship's length is used. For seagoing vessels, PIANC guideline 121 recommends a diameter of 2 times the ship's length if tug assistance is present. Without tugboats, three times the ship's length is recommended. The Spanish guidelines for turning basins for seagoing vessels provide very specific dimensions for different types of manoeuvres that may occur at a turning basin in a seaport.

Dimensions

Examples

References

See also