New Locks...Panama Canal

[casamariposa]

I've been trying, without any luck, to find out the status of the opening of the new locks in the Panama Canal. It seems to me that the work is at least a year behind schedule. To ease my curiosity, does anyone have some up-to-date information? Thanks.

[CruiserBruce]

If you look on the Panama Canal board, here:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=89

 

you will see the most recent scheduled opening will be January 2016. I don't think you will be using the new locks unless you are on a ship too big to use the old locks. None of HAL's ships are too big for the old locks.

Edited March 24, 2015 by CruiserBruce

[summer slope]

If you look on the Panama Canal board, here:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=89

 

you will see the most recent scheduled opening will be January 2016. I don't think you will be using the new locks unless you are on a ship too big to use the old locks. None of HAL's ships are too big for the old locks.

 

It will be interesting to see it anyway. I'll be passing through in March 2016.

[Mtn2Sea]

At our meet and greet in February on the Zuiderdam, the captain indicted the HAL ship under construction will be too large for the old locks. He also indicated the new locks will not have the mules like the old lock. Tugboats will assist the ship's going through the locks.

[Krazy Kruizers]

On our recent partial Panama Canal cruise, it was mentioned that the opening of the new locks may not even happen in January 2016.

[PathfinderEss]

I'm really surprised that the new build is going to be to big to use the old locks. Interesting.

[jtl513]

I'm really surprised that the new build is going to be to big to use the old locks. Interesting.

I think not too long, but definitely too wide. The current locks are 110 feet wide, and HAL's newest six ships are 106 feet wide, giving 2 ft clearance on each side. The Pinnacle class will be about 60 ft wider!

[Kamloops50]

I've been trying, without any luck, to find out the status of the opening of the new locks in the Panama Canal. It seems to me that the work is at least a year behind schedule. To ease my curiosity, does anyone have some up-to-date information? Thanks.

 

The new locks are supposed to be in service in mid 2017 .They have delayed at least 3 times since they where started. One issue is that many new ships are to high to pass under the bridges.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Kamloops50

[janmcn]

 

We just went through the Canal earlier this month and they are still digging the new canal! LOTS of earth moving. There are two parts of it that will connect into/out of the Gatun Lake. I didn't see the condition of the Atlantic side part, but this is a photo (right side) of the Pacific side.

[janmcn]

I think not too long, but definitely too wide. The current locks are 110 feet wide, and HAL's newest six ships are 106 feet wide, giving 2 ft clearance on each side. The Pinnacle class will be about 60 ft wider!

 

The Konigsdam will be 35 meters at the beam (114 feet) and the Nieuw Amsterdam is 32 meters (105 feet) at the beam...NOT 60 feet ;-)

[CruiserBruce]

The new locks are supposed to be in service in mid 2017 .They have delayed at least 3 times since they where started. One issue is that many new ships are to high to pass under the bridges.

 

The 2017 date is not supported by some of the very knowledgeable people on the Panama canal board I linked above.

[Kamloops50]

The Niew Amsterdam is going to Alaska in 2016. It is scheduled to do the Canal in 2016. The earth moving is the back filling of the concrete. The gates for the canal are onsite. Most of the gates are installed . There is a webpage that shows the status and pictures of the construction.

[Tarpeian Rock]

The Konigsdam will be 35 meters at the beam (114 feet) and the Nieuw Amsterdam is 32 meters (105 feet) at the beam...NOT 60 feet ;-)

 

 

That makes more sense. A beam of 166 feet would have been close to HAL's first aircraft carrier.

[jtl513]

The Konigsdam will be 35 meters at the beam (114 feet) and the Nieuw Amsterdam is 32 meters (105 feet) at the beam...NOT 60 feet ;-)

Thanks for the correction. In looking at the deck plans I couldn't see where it appeared substantially wider than the Signature/Vista ships, but an early (Feb 2013) post on the class said:

 

On our Eastern Caribbean cruise Feb 16-23rd we spoke with Stan Kuppens as part of our CC meet and greet. He answered our questions for about an hour,what a personable man.

This is a summary of what he had to say about the new build-he will be in Venice assisting with it one steel starts being laid as he was with the Eurodam and NA:

-The ship will look exacltly the same as the siganture class externally.

-It will be 30 metres wider and twice as long between the external elevators as the signature class

-the previous interior designer has retired so the interior will obviously have changes.

-the signature class has 8 optional spaces (for example:crow's nest,explorers lounge, Tamarind,Pinnacle,Canaletto) and all will remain and they are going to add 4 new ones for a total of 12 (no hints on the new spaces).He acknowledged the trend toward greater choices.

- additional outlets over the nightables

-an additional light in front of the closets so the closet closest to the bed gets light which it currently does not.

-clocks in the phones like the NA to tell the time

-a brand new ship APP for smart phones and devices that will allow passengers to integrate into the ships hotel and entertainment. For example, port information,deck plans, E-Explorer, restaurant reservations, videos etc. It will not cost anything additional but does not allow for internet useage. That of course will still be additional.

 

I guess he meant 3 meters, not 30, and then I mis-remembered the number anyway. In any case, it is too wide for the existing locks. :)

 

Edited March 25, 2015 by jtl513

[BillB48]

The Canal reports that the new locks are over 80% complete as well as the Pacific Access Channel (PAC) which will bypass Miraflores Lake connecting the Gaillard Cut with the new Pacific Locks. The elevation of the water in the PAC will be at Gatun Lake level and the water in Miraflores Lake will be 35' lower, this will require the construction of a dam that will essentially run from Pedro Miguel Locks to the new locks. While the digging is complete as the design depth has been met, there is a mountain of earth moving going on to complete the dam that will separate the two bodies of water. This project is also over 80% complete. Other related projects such

as dredging and raising the operating level of Gatun Lake another 1.5' are essentially complete.

 

All of the 16 gates have been delivered from Italy are in position at their respective locks, however they are not all installed in their recesses. Once the gate is placed in the recess there is considerable work to construct the mechanism that they will roll on.

 

There has been some labor problems in the past and the consortium doing the bulk of the work has had some money problems, those issues "seem" to have been put to rest for now. Of course it isn't over til it is over and there is still a lot to be done. As of now, construction is to be completed by December 2015 and operations begin January 2016.

[Himself]

I thought the gates would be operational by now. I was in the canal on the Westerdam in the fall of 2013 and I thought they said they would using the new locks by January of 2015.

I guess that would be a bit optimistic.

[Himself]

The Niew Amsterdam is going to Alaska in 2016. It is scheduled to do the Canal in 2016. The earth moving is the back filling of the concrete. The gates for the canal are onsite. Most of the gates are installed . There is a webpage that shows the status and pictures of the construction.

 

Thank you for the information on the Nieuw Amsterdam. I might try and catch that cruise that takes her through the Panama Canal for the first time. Is she going to go out of Seattle or Vancouver?

[rajkr74]

We have been thru the canal twice, once in 2009 and again in 2011. We could not see any of the new locks during construction from the ship but a lot of activity from excavation.

 

Here is the link to the canal web cams for both the old locks and the expansion project. Looks like the gates are in place.

 

http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html

 

Check the tab on the top of the home page "Expansion Program". It gives percentages of completion and other information.

Edited March 25, 2015 by rajkr74

[casamariposa]

We have been thru the canal twice, once in 2009 and again in 2011. We could not see any of the new locks during construction from the ship but a lot of activity from excavation.

 

Here is the link to the canal web cams for both the old locks and the expansion project. Looks like the gates are in place.

 

http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html

 

Check the tab on the top of the home page "Expansion Program". It gives percentages of completion and other information.

Thank you, rajkr, for the website information. I, too, went through in 2011 and saw a lot of "earth moving" going on. I'm going through again in early January, and it will be interesting to see how close to completion the new locks are, although I doubt that I'll be passing through them.

[indokiwi]

I don't think you will be using the new locks unless you are on a ship too big to use the old locks. None of HAL's ships are too big for the old locks.

 

On our recent Panama Canal cruise, in September, the narrator from the Panama Canal Authority that explains things out on deck through the locks said that once the new canal is open, the old canal will be out of service for a while as they service the doors/locks. There are only a few original replacement doors for the old locks. We saw some floating near the Gatun locks. They swap them out every so often for maintenance, but the guide pointed out that these doors have been in service for so many years that they need "rest and rehab" for a while. He didn't give the overall time that the old canal would be "out of order" but it sounds like it will be out of commission for a little while - and that all ships, regardless of size, will use the new canal during that time.

[BillB48]

On our recent Panama Canal cruise, in September, the narrator from the Panama Canal Authority that explains things out on deck through the locks said that once the new canal is open, the old canal will be out of service for a while as they service the doors/locks. There are only a few original replacement doors for the old locks. We saw some floating near the Gatun locks. They swap them out every so often for maintenance, but the guide pointed out that these doors have been in service for so many years that they need "rest and rehab" for a while. He didn't give the overall time that the old canal would be "out of order" but it sounds like it will be out of commission for a little while - and that all ships, regardless of size, will use the new canal during that time.

 

I believe the person providing the narration perhaps for the sake of brevity or not wanting to make the presentation too complicated has provided you with less than accurate information. Hopefully I can fill in some gaps while not making it too long or down to low in the weeds:o. The present locks are not going to be removed from service for any length of time. The new expansion locks are to augment the present locks and to be able to pass ships through the Canal that are presently too large for transit. The present locks will be a very integral part of Canal. When a particular lane at any of the locks is removed from service for maintenance and repairs, adaptations to lockage procedures and scheduling of ships are put into place for the lane that is still in service. While only using one lane for shipping during maintenance on the opposite lane reduces the Canal's capacity to a degree, but there is sufficient capacity with the lane that is in operation as to not cause horrendous backlog of ships. Generally speaking when a lane at one of the locks is removed from service for dry chamber work for example, the outage is usually less than a week, often only 4 days. Many of the other pieces of locks equipment that has to be overhauled, can be overhauled without removing the lane from service. It certainly is possible that when the new locks are up and running that they will provide additional flexibility for Canal to complete longer overhauls or other capital improvements that may have very difficult using only one lane of the original locks.

 

Let me speak to the miter gates. It is true that there is not a huge backlog of spares, there are actually only two bona fide spares for the entire Canal. What happens is normally there is sufficient redundancy on the Canal that a particular set of miter gates can be removed and floated to a dry dock where they will be overhauled. This part of the overhaul consists mainly of replacement of miter and quoin seals as well as upkeep to the interior and exterior surfaces. Both before and after the dry dock procedure the gates are stored in a floating position in Gatun Lake where you saw them until they can be replaced in their original position. At some point while the miter gates are being overhauled, the dry chamber work at the locks where the gates were removed will take place. This often the 4 day lane outage I mentioned earlier. The major work completed during the dry chamber portion is rebuilding the seals for the gate on the chamber floor and replacement of the quoin seals that are embedded in the lock wall. To wrap up the overhaul cycle for that gate, the Canal's heavy lift crane Titan will be used to reposition the gate in the original position.

 

In general four miter gates undergo a complete overhaul about every 25 years and there are 60 miter gates on the Canal.

 

I am going to include a picture from one of the Canal's web cam that will show the Titan holding a miter gate. I don't know if the gate has recently been removed to begin the overhaul process or whether the gate is being returned to end the overhaul process. That is one leaf of the miter gate on the Titan's hook. The picture is from today 3/25, the Titan is presently in Miraflores Lake.

 

[cruz chic]

We have been thru the canal twice, once in 2009 and again in 2011. We could not see any of the new locks during construction from the ship but a lot of activity from excavation.

 

Here is the link to the canal web cams for both the old locks and the expansion project. Looks like the gates are in place.

 

http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html

 

Check the tab on the top of the home page "Expansion Program". It gives percentages of completion and other information.

 

I couldn't see them in April 2014 either.