The Main Event: An Engineering Marvel

 “Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory or defeat.”  ― David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas

Well, this was why I signed on to this “pre-cruise cruise”: transiting the Panama Canal.  It was so well worth it.  On the ship as a speaker is a gentleman who was a senior official of the canal during the days of American control.  The transit itself was fascinating. The details and color he added made it all the better.

It’s all done with gravity. Upon entry to the canal, the ship must rise 85 feet.  This is done in three chambers at the first lock, Gatun.  While there is a mechanical “mule” helping the ship move, the key is movement of water from one chamber to another. When the ship approaches, the water in the chambers ahead is higher than the water where the ship is. Water is then released from the forward chamber to yours, until the water levels in the two chambers are equal.  The ship moves forward into the next chamber, where the process is repeated, until the ship reaches Gatun Lake, which, at the time of its formation, was the largest man-made lake in the world.  It takes 26 million gallons of water from Gatun Lake to raise a ship to its level.

The photo attached (at least I hope it’s there—cruise ship internet can be challenging) shows a lower chamber filling from the next chamber.

The transit then takes us to two more locks, Pedro Miguel and Miraflores.  Through these locks, we then begin the descent, with Pedro Miguel lowering us by 31 feet (it had only one chamber) and Miraflores by 54 feet to Pacific Ocean level (it had two chambers).  The lowering process was as interesting as the raising process, with water flowing down from our level to raise the next level—the reverse of the Gatun process.

The building of the canal was quite a process.  The French first made an effort starting in 1882, headed by the individual responsible for the building of the Suez Canal. Unfortunately, he tried to use the approach for building a canal that were used for a flat, desert terrain in an area with a mountainous, jungle terrain. Namely, he went about trying to flatten the land to sea level rather than building a canal that would raise and lower ships to the land’s level.  After about six years, some 20,000 deaths (primarily from yellow fever and malaria), and ultimate bankruptcy, the effort was abandoned with only a short portion of a canal completed.  The below (I hope) photo shows what remains of the French effort—the little branch off to the right.

 

In 1904, the Americans picked up the effort, completing it 10 years later.  That effort also cost lives—5,600 in all.  The numbers were lower than the French effort because one of the early managers was determined that living conditions of the workers be acceptable before work progressed, and because by then it was understood that mosquitoes were the bearers of the deadliest diseases.

The canal today runs much the same way it did in 1914, relying primarily on gravity.  An expansion is being built that will enable the canal to handle today’s larger ships.  The estimated opening date is April of this year, but others are suggesting that it likely will be another year before it is ready.