BlueJacket Transits the Panama Canal

Thursday, April 17, 2014

009-22.060 N
079-57.060 W

Ahoy from the crew of the BlueJacket!

I'm happy to report that BlueJacket is back in the Atlantic and the wonderfully clear waters of the Caribbean! As you may recall we spent a week in Panama City getting the boat ready to transit the canal. This is a much more involved process than any other lock that we've been through, which includes the massive ship locks on the St. Lawrence river that we navigated in 2008. Never having piloted a boat through the Panama Canal before, the only thing that I could figure out was that the currents in the canal must be much more fierce than you experience in other canals.

One of the requirements for transiting the canal is that you have 4 lines handlers aboard. Many cruisers take on other cruisers or backpackers who will do this for free for the experience. Sometimes that works out fine, other times it doesn't. When we helped move s/v Second Tri through the canal in 2001, one of the line handlers bailed the morning of the transit and the captain was left scrambling to find a replacement at the last minute. You may also not know how skilled your volunteers are, so it may be a crap shoot if you get into a difficult situation. As a result we decided to hire "professional" crew who had made the transit many times before. You are also required to have an advisor aboard who interfaces with the lock's port-control staff and tells you how you will be locking at each lock.

In order to maximize the number of boats going through the canal, the port control staff can place you in different configurations. You can be side tided to the lock wall, you can be tied to Panama canal tug, you can be tied to another vessel which is tided to the wall, or you can be centered in the chamber with 4 lines going up the canal walls. In the later, there can be up to 3 boats rafted together with the center boat driving.

If you believe the schedule, a transit can only take 1 day, but most of the time it takes 2. This means that you need to have food and sleeping accommodations for 5+ people (the advisors get off at night). For those of you who know Sue's cooking skills, you know that she wouldn't take this lightly and had meals well planned in advance. Believe me, people wouldn't go hungry!

Our transit was scheduled for Wednesday, April 16th and at 7 AM we boarded our 3 hired line handlers. Sue got to play double duty keeping everyone happy and well fed as well as handling a line. We then headed down to the rendezvous spot where our advisor came aboard and asked if we would be willing to take 2 additional advisors in training. Yikes, we just went from having 6 people on board to having 8! We agreed and started heading for the locks. I suppose that one of the benefits of having local hired crew was that they were willing to sit on the foredeck in the sun and to keep out of the way of advisors. Cruisers would have wanted to have been in the cockpit in the shade.

The Panama canal consists of 6 locks with 3 on each side. Coming from the Pacific side we'll first go through the double Miraflores lock which will raise us about 55', motor a short distance and then go through the Pedro Miguel lock which will raise us about 29' for a total of 84'. We'll then motor about 28 miles across Gaillard Cut and Gatun lake and then drop down 84 feet through the triple Gatun lock. According to the schedule we'll be able to do this in one day, but we have yet to meet anyone in person who has actually done this.

As we approached the Miraflores lock we saw our locking companions. First in the lock was a 480' freighter named the Ecuador Star followed by a tug boat which had a 73' Nordhavn tied to it. It was followed by a 108' long catamaran cruise ship named Discovery which we would tie to. For some reason the person who measured BlueJacket had marked down that we didn't want to tie to a tug, which would have made life much easier than trying to the cruise ship as the line handlers had to throw a 1" line up about 1 story to a relatively small area where the crew of the cruise ship was waiting to catch it and secure it. Despite have "professional" line handlers, their throwing skills weren't great, with probably only a 50% success rate and sometimes requiring 3 attempts. That isn't a good thing when there's a lot of current pushing you around.

BlueJacket has been through easily 100 locks, but I've never seen the amount of turbulence generated when these locks fill. Each lock is 1000' long by 110' wide. It takes 8 minutes to fill/empty each lock and each lock holds 26.7 million gallons (101,000 cubic meters) of water! That's over 3 million gallons of water flowing in/out of a lock per minute on average and at peak it's much more. That generates a lot of turbulence and the vessels in the lock get pushed around a lot and there can still be a lot of current flowing once the doors to the lock have been opened.

Once the water level has equalized the double lock doors are opened and electric locomotives, which weigh 50 tons each and have dual 290 HP motors, pull the ship to the next lock. This is done so that the ships don't have to use their propellers as the prop wash from them could be severe for the vessels behind them and it allows for much more precise positioning. We would then untie from the cruise ship and then pull ahead and to the side to allow the cruise ship to slip past us and get tied up at the next lock. We made it through the first 3 locks without any issues, but we were running quite a bit behind schedule, which pretty much guaranteed that we were going to take 2 days to transit the canal.

Once you exit the 3rd lock on the Pacific side you head through the Gaillard cut, which is an 8.75 mile trench which connects the locks to Lake Gatun. It passes through the continental divide and hills which are 335' above sea level. Unfortunately the soil is very unstable, leading to frequent land slides. The construction of the section of the canal, which started in 1881, was a true feat of engineering requiring the removal of something like 120 million cubic yards of material. 5,600 people died due to disease and accidents during the construction. Even today landslides plague the canal.

Once you pass through the Gaillard cut you enter Lake Gatun and work your way around lots of islands. By mid-afternoon the Gatun locks were visible, but we were told that we would be spending the night in the lake and that we should be ready to leave the following morning at 7 AM. We tied up to a mooring ball and enjoyed the cool, clear water of Lake Gatun. We had a great dinner and were up at 6 AM getting everyone fed and the boat ready to depart...except that the advisors didn't show up until almost 3 PM and there was no communication from anyone letting us know what they schedule was. That was very frustrating!

Once again we had 3 advisors, 2 of which were the same as the day before. However, the new senior advisor was Mr. Grumpy and didn't seem to like the fact that we had a very friendly relationship with the other two. Some food and pleasantries helped his disposition. Once again we were going to lock through with the small cruise ship, but this time we had a large car carrier positioned 100' behind us. It's quite the view to look back and have a huge ship right behind you!

Down-locking is much more sedate than uplocking as the water is being drained out of the lock. That's not to say that there aren't a lot of currents flowing through the locks, even when the doors are open. The first 2 locks went OK, but on the 3rd lock the advisor had me approach the cruise ship at a much steeper angle than I normally do. I guess that was due to concerns about a current pushing me into the cruise ship. Unfortunately the line handler throwing the stern line missed the throw and suddenly I found the stern of BlueJacket getting shoved around and very quickly we were facing backwards in the lock! We got ourselves secured in reverse to the cruise ship and then discussed how we were going to solve this. You can watch a 2x normal speed version of this below. Note that if the video doesn't appear below, please click here to view it on YouTube.

It seems that this is a common occurrence in this lock as our freinds on Endorfin did (2) 180 spins and I was told not to worry. Yeah, easier said than done! We down-locked in this position and then released the stern line while keeping the bow line attached to the stern of the cruise ship. We tried using the engine to back us around and we almost succeeded, but the current that had spun us was still present and we just couldn't make it. While we were trying this the large ship is blowing its horn telling us to get moving. No pressure here! The crew of the cruise ship had us throw them another line and between these 2 lines, we were able to get spun around and headed out of the lock. This whole procedure took about 8 minutes and no paint was swapped, so I guess that it was a successful transit. I've got the whole thing on video, which makes for some interesting viewing.

The sun was low in the sky as we departed the locks. After the advisors got picked up by a work boat we headed to Shelter Bay Marina and pulled in just after sunset. It was quite the day and I was very glad that it was over!

-- Geoff & Sue

P.S. A little side story here. Sue put on such an amazing feast for the advisors and line handlers that all 3 advisors from the first day asked that we contact our agent and request that they come back for the second day. One of the line handlers drove about 1/2 hour the next day to bring us a dinner of traditional Easter food and to introduce us to his wife and child. I guess that they enjoyed their transit!

P.P.S Photos from the Panama Canal and the transit are located here.

 

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For the cruiser: 

One of the things that we figured out was that having good line handlers is a must. You can't rely on inexperienced people when situations arise. We had 3 paid line handler, 1 who was very good, 1 who was OK and 1 who we wouldn't recommend. Also, you may end up in a situation where you have to throw heavy lines. Make sure that you have at least 2 people who are capable of doing this and hitting the target.

Fees to transit the canal were as follows:

Vessel transit: $800 (<50')
Line handlers: $120 each
Lines: $120
Canal Inspection: $55
Security surcharge: $130
Clearance: $20
Bank commission on above: $80
Agency Fee: $450
Petties & incidentals: $50

Total: $2065 including 3 line handlers

Log ID: 2244