Panama Canal

Panama Canal
Panama Canal Map

The advantages of having a way which join the Atlantic and the Pacific was thought by Carlos V, King of  Spain, in the year 1534, who ordered the first topographic works in order to build a canal, but this constructuion was too difficult for the times. In the year 1882, a company started working in the channel, but 5 years later they had to stop due to some epidemics, the weather of Panama and embezzlement, so sold their rights to The United States of America with a cost of $40 million. In 1904, the construction was restarted. It lasted 10 years, with 75,000 employees and a final budget of $400 million. They had deal with a lot of problems like deseases, landslides due to the geological complexity and the management and organization of the biggest work ever seen. The Panama Canal was inaugurated in 1914, and sice then 850,000 ships have travelled through it.

panama canal topography

Panama Canal has a length of 80Km between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. In order to cross the mountains, the canal is made up by some lokcs which allow the raising of the level of water and go down again up to the see. There are three groups of locks, which are called with the names of the villages where they were built. The elevation and the descent of the ships is made thanks to water from Gatum Lake.

Since the Panama Canal is running, only once was closed due to a landslide in 1915 and 7 months were needed to open again. Each vessel need 197 million of litres of fresh water and operate 24 hours per day and 365 days per year.

The average price is $40,000 per vessel, and 12,000 ships use the Panama Channel each year.

The canal helps to Panama generating employment, payment of salaries, the purchase of commodities and sevices to local suppliers, develop the tourist sector…

Vessels are bigger and bigger, and the Panama Canal needs to improve its instalations in order to be competitive in the present time. Some improvements will be:
- The widening of Corte Culebra.
- Modernization of locks machinery.
- The purchase of new tugboats.
- Enhance the computer system.

Making these improvements, Panamax and Postpanamax will be able to transport their goods in perfect conditions of security, decreasing the cost that involve surround South America.

Lock size

The size of the locks determines the maximum size of a ship that can pass through them. Because of the importance of the canal to international trade, many ships are built to the maximum size allowed. These are known as Panamax vessels. A Panamax cargo ship typically has a DWT of 65,000–80,000 tonnes, but its actual cargo is restricted to about 52,500 tonnes because of the 41.2 feet (12.6 m) draft restrictions within the canal. The longest ship ever to transit the canal was the San Juan Prospector (now Marcona Prospector), an ore-bulk-oil carrier that is 973 ft (296.57 m) long, with a beam of 106 ft (32.31 m).
Initially the locks at Gatun had been designed to be 28.5 meters (94 ft) wide. In 1908, the United States Navy requested that width be increased to at least 36 meters (118 ft), which would allow the passage of U.S. naval ships. Eventually a compromise was made and the locks were built 33.53 meters (110.0 ft) wide. Each lock is 320 meters (1,050 ft) long with the walls ranging in thickness from 15 meters (49 ft) at the base to 3 meters (9.8 ft) at the top. The central wall between the parallel locks at Gatún is 18 meters (59 ft) thick and stands in excess of 24 meters (79 ft) high. The steel lock gates measure an average of 2 meters (6.6 ft) thick, 19.5 meters (64 ft) wide and 20 meters (66 ft) high. It is the size of the locks, specifically the Pedro Miguel Locks, along with the height of the Bridge of the Americas at Balboa, that determine the Panamax metric and limit the size of ships that may use the canal.
The 2006 Third lock lane project will create larger locks, allowing bigger ships to transit through deeper and wider channels. The allowed dimensions of ships will increase by 25% in length, 51% in beam, and 26% in draft, as defined by New Panamax metrics