LAKE GENEVA is presently arriving at the entrance to the Panama Canal and I expect her to anchor this evening just
off the entrance to the canal and then commence her transit in the early hours of tomorrow morning.
She will have paid a fee to jump the queue and so I am pretty confident she won't be waiting long.
The first indication of something happening will be the arrival alongside her of a canal pilot. He will board the ship and she will then head up towards the first set of locks, the Miraflores locks. This is the first of a set of two locks which will lift the ship a total of 54ft. After Miraflores the ship will motor the short distance to the second set of locks, the Pedro Miguel Locks which will lift the ship the final 31ft. The ship will now be level with Gatun lake and she can make her way to the final set of locks, the Gatun locks which will then lower the ship 85ft to the Caribbean in 3 stages.
The Panama Canal provides a shortcut for shipping travelling from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean and vice-versa. Instead of having to route to the south of South America and then back up, a distance of about 10,000 nm the canal offers a mere 51 mile transit. This comes at a big (well into 6 figures USD) price, calculated by a complicated formula, designed to maximise revenue to the canal operators. The original canal opened in 1914 and was an immediate success. In the first year it handled about 1000 ships and by 2008 it was handling nearly 15,000. These figures alone don’t tell the whole story because ships were getting bigger and bigger and one of the limits to the size of ships being built was the size of the locks in the Panama Canal. Ships that were built to fit (just) into the locks were described as Panamax ships. That is why so many cruise ships, container ships and car carriers are 32.3m wide and have a draft of under 12.6m.
The expansion of global trade and the increase in shipping meant that the canal was becoming a bottleneck with frequent delays and queues of ships waiting to transit. Fees for queue jumping became ever more expensive and ever more necessary to avoid delays. Alternatives to the canal were seriously being considered eg the NW passage and a number of alternative canal routes that avoided Panama completely. Panama relies on the income from the canal and could not afford for any of the alternatives plans to be viable and so the plan for the expansion to the existing canal system was commenced in 2007 and completed in 2016. This introduced two new sets of locks built parallel to the existing locks. Significantly, they now allow ships up to 366m long, 49m wide and with a draft of up to 15m to transit the canal. The new locks are of a modern design which use less water and are regarded as safer and more reliable too.
So a Panamax ship like LAKE GENEVA will use the old locks - Miraflores, Pedro Miguel and Gatun locks to transit whereas bigger ships like GLOVIS SIRIUS have to use the new locks at Cocoli and Agua Clara.
The canal is big business and so is generally a pretty slick operation entirely dependent on how much you have paid. The Tesla ships are normally booked in several weeks in advance and are given a pretty high priority. Delays of more than 24 hours are rare and normally we can expect the ships to start their northbound transit in the small hours of the morning and be in the Caribbean around 8 hours later.
There are webcams at the locks so you can watch the ships going through. The link to the webcams are
here There are plenty of youtube videos and documentaries on the canal, its operation and construction, many of which are very good.
For
LAKE GENEVA, I am unsure of when to expect her transit. I will be keeping an eye on her in case she does manage to start her transit later today. If she waits until tomorrow I would expect her to be at Miraflores around 6-7 am UK time tomorrow. By the time she reaches Gatun locks it will be daylight. I expect her to be in the Caribbean shortly after 3pm UK time.
Thanks to
@Mister J for providing the above graphic.
