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Contrary to some rumors the Panama Canal is not necessarily a hard transit.
The primary goal of all canal operations is safety. I have been thru twice
in small craft. You may have heard that small craft don't go thru on the
side wall or at night. There are reasons why this is generally so, but here
is what is involved.
No small craft is going thru a lock by itself. There is too much water
involved. This means you go with others and if it were at night, it means
it will be a big ship. If you are transiting with a big ship at night then
you have to be at all locks when the big ship gets there. In practice this
means you have to be able to maintain about 9-10 knots. If your engine
fails and you can't keep up, you will incur quite a bit of expense for the
canal operations. As they will have to baby your until they get you out.
You can assume they will charge extra for this.
Now about the issue of side wall lockage. The biggest locks in the world
may just be the locks at the canal, 110 feet by 1100 feet by 29 feet deep.
There are probably a number of locks similar in size in the world but they
are not numerous. It so happens that the Big Ballard Lock at Seattle
Washington is 86 feet by 900 feet by 29 feet deep. If you live in the NW
and want to practice for a Panama Canal transit the best place to get
experience is to transit the Ballard Lock in the big lock. There is a
smaller lock and it is often used by pleasure craft. But, you can take your
chances or if you ask politely they may let you go with a bigger vessel in
the large lock. I have lucked out and been in the Big Ballard Lock about a
dozen times. The practice is a lot of help. At Ballard side tie is the
rule, I have never seen or heard of center tie there, or the use of tying
onto a tug, so side wall it is.
One more thing about side tie. Sailboats are poor candidates for side tie.
And safety being the top priority, tearing up your mast and rigging is
considered bad form. It is real hard to work a sailboat right next to the
wall. But if you have a powerboat, good strong fender boards and crew that
is experienced then side tie is pretty easy, especially if you have a bow
thruster.
You can talk the Canal Authorities into most anything if you have your act
together and look professional. Don't try to fool them. In both cases I
mentioned transiting, we used a ships agent. His name is Peter Stevens,
Delfina Agency. Balboa Panama.
You can find the Canal web site at:
pancanal.com
Regards,
Capt. Mike Maurice
