retour de quai

08:43 Aug 25, 2017

This question was closed without grading. Reason: Answer found elsewhere

French to English translations [PRO]
Tech/Engineering - Construction / Civil Engineering / ports and docks

French term or phrase: retour de quai

Planned works to port infrastructure.

"La longueur du môle XXX est de 400 m - valeur entre les bords ou nus des poutres de retour de quai - soit 398 m entre les axes des écrans de soutènement (rideau mixte)."

"Axe de référence – L’axe de référence marquant l’axe d’embecquetage de la passerelle roulière est placée à 16 m du bord de la poutre du retour de quai Est."

"Position du closoir N°1 : à environ 25 m du retour de quai Ouest (*) ;"

Nothing appears in any dictionaries, online or off, which I have checked. Googling, though, it does come up (a little bit!) as a phrase clearly known to those who manage docks and port installations.

It would appear that "retour" may be used here in the sense of a "projection" (see here, https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/retour, definition 12). Obviously if someone can explain with confidence what it is in French that'd be great but if I can find the actual English term, so much the better.

Mpoma KudoZ activity Questions: 1026 (3 open) (91 closed without grading) Answers: 384 United Kingdom
Local time: 13:23

Summary of answers provided

quay return

annitap

wing wall

Mair A-W (PhD)

Discussion entries: 8

Mpoma

United Kingdom

ASKER

In the end ...

16:24 Mar 5, 2018

I put "dock end section". It's a bit of a dock which is at right-angles to a long straight stretch...

annitap

United States

10:12 Aug 26, 2017

Could it be quay deck? http://www.peterheadport.co.uk/documents/sedloadingcapacity....

annitap

United States

10:06 Aug 26, 2017

I did another extensive research on all news published in French using "retour de quai" and compared to the English ones. I found out that all of them avoid such an expression. They only refer to quay, heavy-load quay or quay deck.

annitap

United States

09:49 Aug 26, 2017

@Mpoma (regarding your note to me)
Examples of quay in a Sentence:
... docked the ferry at the quay to let the passengers off.

In 1882-1884 a dock some 7 acres in extent was constructed, with an entrance lock giving access to the quay sides for vessels of 3000 tons.

Mpoma

United Kingdom

ASKER

@Tony

09:15 Aug 26, 2017

Thanks. I've never heard that use of the word "return" in EN... learn something new every day. Ro-ro berths may possibly be involved... but the document has gone back now, with a question for the client about the nature of these 'retour de quai' constructions/features.

Tony M

France

@ Asker

20:04 Aug 25, 2017

In that sense, we do indeed call it a 'return' in EN too... but this seems slightly at odds with the definition you originally found for your term. Gneerally, a wharf will not have any 'reurns' or 'kinks' in it, to make it easier for manœuvring ships; so we need to know if that is indeed what it is, what the specific justification for it is here —e.g. for a ro-ro berth?

Mpoma

United Kingdom

ASKER

AHA!

18:55 Aug 25, 2017

Petit Robert to the rescue: "angle, saillie, que forme un mur, un corps de bâtiment par rapport à l'alignement du reste de la construction". Still no idea what the EN term is, of course!

Mpoma

United Kingdom

ASKER

Possible lead

17:27 Aug 25, 2017

This has a helpful diagram: it's about rubbish skips, nothing maritime:
http://www.technegoce.com/produits/dechetterie/haut-de-quai/... ... it is clear to me from this that it is saying "you can also put guardrails on the bits of the platform which are at 90 degrees to the stretch of platform directly over the skip". So a mundane explanation. Il reste encore le terme anglais maritime ...! "Dock end section" might be as close as I'll get... Aren't there any grizzled sea-dogs out there who can put this land-lubber right? (Appel général aux loups de mer grisonnants au secours de ce veau de rivière...)

In fact... I'd go so far as to say this is a missing definition from the word "retour". I wonder how you submit a suggestion for another definition to Wiktionnaire. It'd be interesting to know whether any FR-EN dictionaries have ever included this "concept"... or indeed any monolingual FR dictionaries...

Answers

2 hrs confidence:

wing wall

Explanation:
I'm not very sure, but I'd picture it as a (mur en retour) de quai:
http://www.proz.com/kudoz/french_to_english/construction_civ...
https://books.google.de/books?id=jxX8nFivTXgC&lpg=PA225&ots=... (p.225)

WP on wing wall: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_wall

Quays with wing walls:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalarchives/5415810589
https://books.google.de/books?id=w80UAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA57&lpg=PA...
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/quay-wall-near-ringsend-brid... (I looked for a picture of this but I can't find one)

Mair A-W (PhD)
Germany
Local time: 14:23
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 10

Notes to answerer

Asker: Thanks very much for your efforts. Still finding it tantalisingly inconclusive! I'm not sure a wall (i.e. a structure higher than the level of the dock) is involved really. It could of course just be ends of a stretch of dock at right-angles to it. But, again, I can find no evidence either way!

32 mins confidence:

quay return

Explanation:
First, I found this article about the reparation du retour de quai de la marine royale au port de Tanger. http://www.somagec.ma/slide.asp?id=204&projet=Réparation du ...

Then, I searched for that news in English and found the expression "quay return"
http://www.somagec.ma/e_projets.asp?genr=PORT
(use Control F and type quay return)

After that, I googled "quay return" and found other examples. It always refers to docks

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Note added at 1 day1 hr (2017-08-26 10:06:22 GMT)
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I did another extensive research on all news published in French using "retour de quai" and compared to the English ones. I found out that all of them avoid such an expression. They only refer to quay, heavy-load quay or deck quay.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 day1 hr (2017-08-26 10:15:07 GMT)
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quay deck... I mean

annitap
United States
Local time: 08:23
Native speaker of:

Portuguese

Notes to answerer

Asker: Thanks for trying... but I'd be very sceptical of that. It looks like a literal translation by someone in the Somagec company in Morocco. That page speaks of " Works of rehabiltation" for example. They *do* appear to have many of the technical terms correct, but "quay" is rarely used in technical documents about ports (invariably "dock").

Asker: I did some searching on "quay return" just to be sure, and this has convinced me that this is not the right term.

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