gangplank

noun, a movable plank usu. with cleats nailed on it for boarding or disembarking from a ship etc. (COD)

“Everything was gone. The horse was gone, the sleigh was, you know, gone, everybody was in the water. Then, it was luck. Fortunately, it was quite close to the tug. And Captain Bates was the captain on that tug, and I always said that he should’ve got a medal, I think. There was a gangplank on the tug about the width of this table, maybe twelve- over fourteen feet long. It was a good substantial railing on it. And he slid that out over the hole. And he gone on the end of it pulling people out.”

“[The tug] couldn’t come in all the way because the water wasn’t deep enough, partway between Garden Island and the Village. And Tom drove us out, took it in the old car. Sarah sat in the front holding the baby, and I stood in the back and drove right up the gangplank of the tug.”