
Huge Backlog of Ships Waiting to Pass Through the Panama Canal - protomyth
https://gcaptain.com/there-is-a-huge-backlog-of-ships-waiting-to-pass-through-the-panama-canal/
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jtchang
The panama canal is not only an engineering marvel but a financial one as
well. It can cost up to a quarter million for passage if you are a large
container ship (such as a panamax class ship).

One thing that I was surprised was that the lateral drift was not computer
controlled. Scary that even a small miscalculation can rip a hole in the
ship's hull.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4F867o_U1w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4F867o_U1w)

~~~
RyJones
Thanks for that. Funny they say the Kentucky Highway makes it to the Atlantic
"without a scratch" after it was bounced off the wall of the locks; you can
clearly see the huge smear/scratch on the paint in shots after the collision.

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paulsutter
That's not a lot of ships. More ships are always waiting near Singapore (zoom
in):

[http://s3.amazonaws.com/mongabay/indonesia-
java/600/java_000...](http://s3.amazonaws.com/mongabay/indonesia-
java/600/java_0001.jpg)

Does anyone know why there are so many ships waiting at Singapore? Are they
merely idle? Waiting for port access? (if you're not familiar, look where
Singapore sits on a map. Every ship between east asia and europe/middle east
passes by).

~~~
simonbyrne
Could still be surplus capacity from the post-GFC slump. From 2009:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/business/global/13ship.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/business/global/13ship.html)

> Vessels have flocked to Singapore because it has few storms, excellent ship
> repair teams, cheap fuel from its own refinery and, most important,
> proximity to Asian ports that might eventually have cargo to ship.

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grecy
If you ever get the change, I highly recommend a visit to the canal. The scale
is hard to comprehend. Watching container ships pass through is super
satisfying from an engineering perspective.

My visit: [http://theroadchoseme.com/the-panama-
canal](http://theroadchoseme.com/the-panama-canal)

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kylelibra
If you are wondering why:

"A statement provided to us Friday from the Panama Canal Authority said that a
high level of arrivals during the last in September coincided with schedule
dry-chamber maintenance."

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throwaway_exer
Scheduled with who? Obviously not their clients, the shipping companies.

Kind of like ebay not considering their 2-hour Sunday "planned maintenance
events" to be outages ... for 2 decades.

~~~
helper
What are the shipping companies going to do, use the Nicaragua Canal?

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im3w1l
Dock ships on both sides of land. Truck goods from one ship to the other. Or
maybe that would also be too expensive?

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zrail
There's a railroad. It can carry about 1,500 containers a day[1]. There are
approximately 175,000 containers waiting to transit the canal, based on the
33,500 figure in the linked Wiki page and the 5 day wait.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal_Railway#2001_reco...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal_Railway#2001_reconstruction)

~~~
WildUtah
Technically Panama's is the first transcontinental railroad, beating the Union
Pacific by fourteen years. Panama's was running in 1855 while the line over
the Sierra Nevada opened in 1869.

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toomim
It's likely that this is due to corruption in Panama with pressure from
Nicaragua and Hong Kong. The official reasons given don't make sense:

> Marine Traffic Control said the backlog is primarily due to weather
> conditions, including several days of fog at the canal. But we spoke with a
> canal insider, who said that in his decades of experience he has only seen
> it like this when there is some other issue going on – not one that’s
> weather related.

Thus, something is happening behind the scenes that they don't want to talk
about.

Maybe there is political pressure from Nicaragua/Hong Kong proponents of the
Nicaraguan canal. The biggest reason cited by the WSJ not to build the canal
is lack of demand:

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-wants-to-dig-the-
nicaragua...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-wants-to-dig-the-nicaragua-
canal-1439159390)

It's quite possible that Nicaragua/Hong Kong are putting pressure on Panama to
increase the wait times. Perhaps they scheduled the "Dry chamber maintenance"
during a high-shipping seasons on purpose:

> A statement provided to us Friday from the Panama Canal Authority said that
> a high level of arrivals during the last in September coincided with
> schedule dry-chamber maintenance.

~~~
rory096
Why would Panama willingly do anything to encourage the Nicaragua Canal? It
poses a huge competitive threat (if it were likely to be built).

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Evolved
Unless they were colluding to increase wait times to get the Nicaragua Canal
built and then share the profits (unlikely). More likely is Panama isn't doing
this to encourage building the Nicaragua Canal but instead is just doing this
to increase premium slot prices.

Could Magic Mountain and Knott's Berry Farm run more roller coaster trains and
decrease wait times? Sure, but then there wouldn't be as much incentive for
people to buy flash/front-of-the-line passes. I'd be willing to bet the waits
are at least partially artificially created to support the flash passes as yet
another source of revenue.

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ghshephard
Speaking from experience, The waits at magic mountain in the 80s ran upwards
of an hour+, and that was prior to flash/front-of-line passes, so I don't
think there is a correlation.

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Evolved
An hour wait at Magic Mountain nowadays seems to be the norm moreso than the
exception. Have you been there in the summer when X2 has had waits in the 2-3
hour range WITHOUT a Flash Pass? This still occurs and the ride is over 12
years old now. I'd argue it is somewhat due to incomes rising enough to allow
more people to attend MM. MM has responded by offering Flash Passes but what
I've yet to see is even on the busiest day, running multiple cars at a quick
enough clip to minimize wait times. With this kind of demand, they really
don't have to minimize wait times since as much as people complain about the
times, they still go.

Furthermore, the Flash Pass isn't so much a front-of-the-line pass as it is a
bypass-most-of-the-line pass. It still deposits you in the loading/unloading
area so you could still hypothetically have a 15-20 minute wait depending on
how many riders are already in the loading/unloading area.

Edit: Goliath (built in 2000) still routinely has 1-2 hour waits and might
even rival Tatsu for most Flash Passed coaster given that X2 was, up until
recently, not even able to be added to the standard Flash Pass unless you
upgraded to the Gold or Platinum Flash Passes.

Tell me that doesn't smell like an incentive to increase waits to drive sales
of Flash Passes in lieu of outright raising prices to control demand.

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techdragon
I still don't understand why anyone building a new canal through Central
America would not be trying to maximise the effectiveness of their work by
building a sea level canal wide either enough for continuous crossing in both
directions or dig two canals and make each one continuous flow in a single
direction.

Yes it's a bigger challenge, but these projects are some of the few remaining
opportunities in modern economics to say "we expect payback time of two
decades" and not get laughed at. No locks no lock maintenance, continuous
flow, more ship, more money.

It's also possible to use novel techniques from the last hundred years of
progress to "dredge forward" using water itself as an an active tool to wash
away all but any hard rock terrain that needs clearing. The rain and loose
soils that hurt the first attempt at the Panama Canal could be turned into a
positive factor with today's technology.

~~~
fraserharris
a) You can not escape the need for locks because there is a 8" height
difference of the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean. Additionally you have tidal
variation.

b) The Panama Canal locks are already in pairs to allow simultaneous bi-
directional traffic. They are currently building a third set of larger locks
that will increase maximum dimensions of vessels transiting the Panama Canal.

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Asbostos
Just because there's a height difference with locks, doesn't mean some kind of
singularity would develop without them. Either the height difference would
disappear, or continuous currents through the canal would maintain it.

In the Panama canal, they benefit from keeping the inland lakes above sea
level so that they're deep enough. If they were connected to the sea, they'd
lower significantly and even more excavation would be needed to make a path
for ships.

There would also be fascinating effects of strong currents through it, sea
level changes, fresh water lakes becoming salt water (sorry local people!),
and fish migrating.

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ChristinaM
The average difference is 8" but with tides it can be up to 12' and it changes
constantly. It'd be really tough for the ships to handle in the confined space
especially when eddies form along the edges and with currents changing over a
period of hours. A lot of these ships only travel at 10-15 knots and they
aren't very maneuverable.

I was recently on a sailboat going through Hell Gate on the East River in NYC.
It has about a 6' tidal range. We can motor at 6 knots. When the tide was at
peak flood into Long Island Sound we were doing about 1/2 knot over the
ground. You can time an East River transit to work around the tides, the
Panama Canal is too long for that to work.

(I don't recommend transiting Hell Gate under those conditions, the UN closed
the river longer than they said they would and we only managed because there
wasn't any wind. We should have anchored and waited a few hours, we would have
gotten through almost as quickly.)

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OscarCunningham
It never ceases to amuse me that the Panama canal runs from the Atlantic in
the west to the Pacific in the east.

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owenversteeg
For the curious - Panama connects North and South America horizontally, thus
the Atlantic is to the north of the country and the Pacific is to the south.
The canal cuts southeast across the country.

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jrapdx3
Doubtful that operators of the Panama Canal would be holding up traffic
because of the proposed Nicaragua canal. After all construction on that
project hasn't even started yet. Furthermore, the new, bigger Panama 3rd set
of locks are now being tested, due to open next year.

Doesn't make sense for Panama to slow things down in view of the loss of
income, the fees collected are serious money, probably the major income source
for the country.

Next year would be a very interesting time to visit the canal re: opening of
the new channel. A few years back I was on a cruise that traversed the canal,
a highly educational and memorable trip worth doing. The Panamanians we
encountered were proud of the Canal expansion project, a significant national
achievement, something important to celebrate.

