Panama Canal

One of the largest man-made canals in the world is the Panama Canal. This canal connects the Pacific Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean. Its construction, although one of the most difficult undertakings, helped replace the traditional route via the Southernmost tip of South America. That route, via Cape Horn and the Drake Passage, proved to be a very treacherous one for a lot of ship voyages. Additionally, the present Panama Canal ensures that faster travel time is capable through its route. A typical ship sailing from New York to San Francisco would generally traverse more than 14,000 miles via the old route via the Cape Horn, whereas it would take just over 6,000 miles via the Panama Canal, less than half the distance.

Under the French rule during the 1880s, the first attempt to construct the canal took place. The project was a failure, and almost 22,000 workers died because of working conditions and local disease. Although it was in the early 16th century where the concept of this canal was formed, it was only successfully implemented in the early 1900s. The United States completed and formally opened the canal by the year 1914. More than 5,000 additional workers died before the successful completion of this 48 mile (77 km) canal.

Panama Canal has been a huge success since it’s inaguration, and remains to be a vital passage for international maritime vessels. Vessels as small as private yachts to those as huge as cruise ships can pass through the canal with ease. However, there are vessels that are much wider than what the canal can allow to pass through. These modern vessels are known as post Panamax / super Panamax (exceeding the maximum allowed Panamax size), and are restricted from using the canal. This issue is being addressed by the Canal Expansion project. Those allowed passage, will find that it takes only nine hours to pass from one end of the canal to the other end.

As of 2005, an average of 40 vessels pass through the canal daily (or a total of 14,011 vessels that have carried a combined 278.8 million tons of cargo). The journey from the Pacific side of the ocean to the Atlantic side (or vice-versa) is one from southeast to northwest.

Liked this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!