They didn’t. They used tenders, skiffs, ship-to-shore ferries, etc. to get from the dock to the ship too big for the dock.

Here’s the wiki page for the SS Nomadic, which was the tender to get people onto the Titanic- it’s still out there and can be toured as a museum in Belfast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Nomadic_(1911)

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

Ships that existed before thug boats would not be considered large today, you could pull them with smaller boats that people rowed or buy using ropes to land or to an anchor that was stopped by a smaller boat.

The option that was commonly used was to drop anchor and load and unload via smaller bots and barges.

The fest steam-powered tug boat was made in 1801. If you look at the war ships of the Napoleonic war more specifically the Battle of Trafalgar HMS Victory, Lord Nelsons' flagship was one of the largest in the British fleet. It was 69 meters long and 16 meters wide and has a 3,500 tons displacement. The vast majority of ships om that fleet or in general was not that larg.

The largest passenger ship in 1831 was SS Royal William at 1,370 ton and 49 meters long.

In 1901 it was RMS Celtic at 20,904 ton and 214 meters.

Today it is Wonder of the Seas 236,857 ton and 362 meters.

All of these ships are after the invention of the steam-powered tugboat. So with today standard that war not large ships before tugboats.

I work at a facility that handles large barges, as well as ships. With the ships, tugs are the main force finessing it into place but also the ships own power source can be used to reverse thrust and ‘apply the brakes’.

The barges are likely more similar in size to that of ships in times before tugs were around to help. Assuming the weather is not too rough (wind can wreak havoc in the process, and it’s more safe for them to be at open sea than to attempt a landing) the barge approaches the dock very slowly, and the tug that has towed it there is also a factor here but the large, heavy ropes that are used to tie the barge up to the dock can be used to ‘apply the brakes’. These ropes are attached to the barge, and a worker on the dock puts a wrap or two around a cleat and is able to apply enough tension in the rope so that it slips just enough for the situation. If he holds the tail of the rope taught, the knot on the cleat gets tight, and the rope gets tight and stretches (the diameter of the rope might be 4 inches in its static state, and as it stretches, the diameter reduces dramatically…. This always freaks me out because I know that if the rope breaks under this kind of stress, it’s like a rubber band on steroids and can literally cut a man in half) as the barge slows down. He can loosen his grip and allow more rope to slip if necessary.

It is surprisingly easy to move even a relatively heavy ship just by pulling on ropes.

Distance is speed times time. Speed is acceleration times time. Acceleration is force divided by mass. A modest force (let's say 50 kg-force) applied to a large mass (let's say 100 metric tons) for a modest amount of time (let's say 20 seconds), is enough to accelerate the mass to a slow but sufficient speed - in this case, 10 centimeters per second, if you ignore all friction. Then wait a bit, and after 10 seconds, the boat/ship has moved a meter.

Of course, water is low friction, not no friction, so it'll take more force and you'll quickly reach a max speed, but it does work in practice.

This video shows a car doing that with a massive modern ship, but as you can imagine, you can do the same with a couple of strong men pulling on ropes.

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