The Panama Canal

The 48 mile-long international waterway known as the Panama Canal allows ships to pass between the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean, saving about 8000 miles from a journey around the southern tip of South America, Cape Horn.

From 1819, Panama was part of the federation and country of Colombia but when Colombia rejected United States plans to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, the U.S. supported a revolution that led to the independence of Panama in 1903.

The new Panamanian government authorized French businessman Philippe Bunau-Varilla, to negotiate a treaty with the United States. The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty allowed the U.S. to build the Panama Canal and provided for perpetual control of a zone five-miles wide on either side of the canal.

Although the French had attempted construction of a canal in the 1880s, the Panama Canal was successfully built from 1904 to 1914. Once the canal was complete the U.S. held a swath of land running the approximately 50 miles across the isthmus of Panama.

In 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter signed a treaty which agreed to return 60% of the Canal Zone to Panama in 1979. The canal and remaining territory, known as the Canal Area, was returned to Panama at noon (local Panama time) on December 31, 1999.



A ship that transits the Canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific enters the channel from Limon Bay at the Cristobal breakwater.

This sea-level section of the Canal channel on the Atlantic side is 6-1/2 miles long and 500 feet wide and runs through a mangrove swamp that is only a few feet above sea level in most places.

A ship is raised or lowered 85 feet in a continuous flight of three steps at Gatun Locks. Each lock chamber is 110 feet wide and 1,000 feet long. The length of Gatun Locks, including the two approach walls, is 1-1/5 miles.

Gatun Lake, through which the ships travel for 23-1/2 miles from Gatun Locks to the north end of Gaillard Cut, covers an area of 163.38 square miles and was formed by the construction of Gatun Dam across the Chagres River adjacent to Gatun Locks. The two wings of the dam and the spillway have an aggregate length of about 1-1/2 miles. The dam is nearly a half mile wide at the base, tapering to a width of 100 feet at the crest, which is 105 feet above sea level, or 20 feet above the normal level of Gatun Lake.

Because of its historical background, perhaps no part of the Canal trip is more interesting to the ship passenger than Gaillard Cut. During the Canal construction period it was called Culebra Cut, but was renamed for Col. David DuBose Gaillard, the engineer who was in charge of this section of the Canal work.

The Gaillard Cut channel was originally a minimum 300 feet wide along its entire 7.8 miles length. In the 1930's, Canal authorities began a Cut Widening Project to increase channel width to a minimum 498 feet in some of the more slide prone areas.

This portion of the channel is about 8-1/2 miles long and was carved through rock and shale for most of the distance. It was here that the principal excavation was required and here that devastating slides occurred during construction and soon after the Canal was opened.

Coming from the Atlantic, a ship enters the Cut where the Chagres River flows into the Canal channel at Gamboa. In the Cut, the ships passes Gold Hill on the left, the highest promontory along the channel. It rises 662 feet above sea level.

Contractor's Hill, seen on the west bank opposite Gold Hill, originally had an altitude of 410 feet, but this was reduced to 370 feet to stabilize the hill in 1954.

A Pacific-bound ship enters Pedro Miguel Locks at the south end of Gaillard Cut. Here it is lowered 31 feet in one step to Miraflores Lake, a small artificial body of water 1 mile wide that separates the two sets of Pacific locks. The length of Pedro Miguel Locks is 5/6 of a mile.

A transiting ship is lowered the remaining two steps to sea level at Miraflores Locks, which is slightly over 1 mile in length. The lock gates at Miraflores are the tallest of any in the system because of the extreme tidal variation in the Pacific Ocean.

Tiny ships like mine will take two days to make the transit southeast. We will be boarded by a mandatory Advisor in late afternoon and will transit the Gatun locks in the dark and will attach to a mooring in Gatun Lake for the night. At about 6AM the next day, we will be boarded by another advisor and will be lowered through the remaining locks to the Pacific Ocean by about 2 PM.

We are currently at a marina in Limon Bay doing the paperwork dance to transit the canal and making final preparations. The cost of the transit is about $800 and includes the rental of 10 tires to hang from the sides of the boat to protect it from the rough lock walls and four 135 foot lines to control the boat. We rotated our stern davits inward since boats over 50 feet will cost an additional $250. We had our official Admeasure yesterday and Emily Grace was recorded at 49.21 feet long. The transit requires 4 separate line handlers in addition to me driving the boat. Many cruisers volunteer to go through the canal on another boat first for practice and we are asking around for volunteers. Professional line handlers can be hired for about $75 each. Kim has been busy planning meals to feed this large crew for the transit.

The Canal operates a live camera feed of the Miraflores Locks and we are hoping one or more of our Dear Readers will tune in and get some screen captures of Emily Grace as we make this historic transit. The website is;

http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html

I will post which day we expect to transit when that becomes known. Stay tuned Dear Reader as the adventure continues…

Tom