20th December 2007 - Transit the Panama Canal
Arrived off Balboa at the south eastern (Pacific) end of the canal at 5.45am and saw Panama city through the lightening dawn with its surprisingly large number of pencil-thin sky scrapers. Apparently, Panama is a major international banking centre as well as running the world's largest mercantile fleet. Since it was said to be second after Switzerland we suspect this means for 'dodgy' private accounts. We can't see how it could rival London and New York as a financial centre. Nevertheless, it was impressive; as was the Panama canal, the main agenda item of the day. We'll spare the details as the important elements can be seen from the photos.
On entering the canal we passed under the mightily impressive trans-American highway bridge hundreds of feet above us. (It is ironic that the only break in this highway running from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego is a mere few miles to the east in the jungles of the Panama/Columbia border - kidnap territory.)
Although the canal is two-way, it seems it is managed by convoy as we only passed a Pacific headed vessel for the first time at sea level on the Atlantic side. After the bridge we passed the docks and trans-shipment station at Balboa, seemingly at the end of a convoy, with a Philippine tanker and German container vessels in front of us. Few folk will know that a significant percentage of goods, particularly container goods, do not cross the isthmus by ship through the canal but are trans-shipped onto the highly efficient electric railway that runs parallel to the canal and are loaded and unloaded at each end in Balboa and Cristobel ports. However, most goes by ship and we learned that a major parametric consideration in the design of ships is the 'Panamax' specification which defines the maximum length, width and 'tropical fresh-water' (TFD) draft of ships that can transit the canal. (For the record this is 294.13m x 32.31m drawing 12.04m TFW). This allows for 0.6m each side (under 2ft) for passing through the locks or 2% of width each side.
The ships' crews do not control their passage through the canal, but merely carry out the instructions of the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) which provides pilots, 'cable crew' and 'mules' to execute the transit. The first lock, Miraflores, shortly after Balboa lifted us two of the three flights required to raise level by the 26m, the height above sea level of the central stretch through the cut and Lake Gaton. It's an amazing site to see the cable crew throwing lines to their colleagues in row boats as we approach each lock. In turn, these guys row to the shore and have the lines connected to steel cables which are then drawn onto the ship and fastened. Each is connected shore-side to a two way electric train which both pulls us through the lock and balances the ship's width through the lock. The mules run on tracks the full length of the double lock, two tracks in the middle and one on each side. Staff cross the canal across the lock gates when closed. MSVG only needed 4 mules: one each for bow/stern port/starboard (oh yes we're nautical now) but the Leverkusen Express and the High Trader in front of us each needed 8 mules apiece. After transiting the two-flight Miraflores locks behind the Philippine tanker we entered the narrow Miraflores Lake for one mile before arriving at Pedro Miguel lock, a single run that completes the 26m rise. This time, we were switched lanes and went through behind the German container ship. And, so into the Gaillard (or Culebra) cut for a few miles and under the second high-level crossing built in 2002 the Centenary bridge, a super slim cable stay suspension bridge, even higher over the canal. See the pics; its amazing to think de Lesseps thought he could build a canal at sea-level when you see the cut. The fact he spent 20 years trying from 1882 (unsuccessfully) shows this wasn't for the best, but although his failure was to do with flooding and earth collapses for the most part, loss of navvies to malaria was equally serious. By the time the US took over in 1903, Malaria was understood and partially licked.
Anyway, back to the cut which runs for 12.6kms and takes the canal over the Pacific/Atlantic watershed. This section is completely fresh water and the height is cleverly maintained by a dammed feeder lake which manages water levels during the dry season. Entering at the end of the cut and the start of Lake Gatun, any excess water during the rainy season is despatched over a spillway in the lake and into the Caribbean (Atlantic). This is necessary because the Alhajuela feeder lake requires its own spillway into Lake Gatun. All very clever. We travelled in procession across Lake Gatun behind the Bremen and Manilla registered freighters to the Gatun locks, a single 'two-way' triple run which takes the boats down (or up) the full 26m in three easy stages - and takes the best part of a couple of hours to do so, particularly if you are running in convoy and have to wait for chambers to be vacated and water levels adjusted. Again, we were behind the Leverkus Express which was full Panamax spec, allowing the High Trader to steal a march on it in the starboard flight. (Whilst very large, HT was not quite as big as LE which required much manipulation by the mules). We should note that the mules' rail track is a cog railway powered by third line and these cogs are really needed when the mules change a level, running up and down at gradients of at least 30% (see pic).
After we completed Gatun locks all the fun was over. We passed a London registered container vessel coming the other way, seemingly going to China with some goods but also for more cheap imports to the US or European markets. We also saw a stretch of the 18 miles of canal de Lesseps completed before abandoning his project which was an altogether more modest affair than the canal completed by the Americans. And so to Cristobel and a supposed short re-fuelling stop that took 8 hours - almost as long as it took to tansit the canal.
