Tugging on ropes just without the diesel engines

A small maneuverable boat pulling a slow unwieldy ship goes back a long ways

Age of sail ships used their ships boats for fine maneuvering. They'd drop the boats over the side, tie a rope to them, then some poor schmucks would have go to out and row and slowly pull the ship out of the harbor or back into its specific dock. Age of sail ships were slowwww anyway so if they could only do 1 knot being pulled by 4 dudes rowing that wasn't bad considering HMS Victory was fast with an 11 knot top speed

Another option was called [warping or kedging](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warping_(sailing)). Schmucks in the ships boat again but this time they're carrying the anchor out, dropping it, and the guys on the ship are pulling the line tight which pulls the ship to the anchor and then raising the anchor so the boat can take it out again.

Once you're near the dock you throw lines to dudes on the ground who have to pull them tight to pull the ship up tight against the dock