Nicaragua says planned canal will cut sailing time for mega-ships Published September 22, 2015 EFE Building an inter-oceanic canal crossing Nicaragua "is closer than ever" and will markedly reduce travel time and costs for mega-ships, a Nicaraguan senior official said here Tuesday. "The aim is to convert Nicaragua into an international maritime transport center for mega-ships that will be mainly responsible for maritime transport in the near future," Paul Oquist, executive director of the Nicaragua Grand Canal Commission, said during an event at the Council of the Americas in Washington. Once completed, he emphasized, the time needed for one of these ships to sail from New Jersey to Shanghai will be reduced to two weeks, given that mega-ships are too big to transit the Panama Canal and currently have to sail around the southern tip of South America. In his speech, Oquist emphasized Nicaragua's solid macroeconomic situation with annual economic...
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10 Things You Didn't Know About the Panama Canal Posted: 09/21/2015 1:22 pm EDT Updated: 09/21/2015 1:59 pm EDT Share 43 Tweet 110 0 Comment 13 A ship prepares to pass through the Miraflores Locks. You may think you know all about the Panama Canal thanks to middle school social studies. Most people know that the Canal was built across the isthmus of Panama to save ships from having to go all the way around South America to connect the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. In fact, you may even know it only takes 8-10 hours for a ship to pass through the canal's three locks, known as the Miraflores, the Pedro Miguel and the Gatún. Even more impressively, you may not have just Googled "isthmus." Still, as I learned on a recent trip to Panama, there's a lot more to the story of the Panama Canal than you probably know. See if you knew any of these ten facts: 1. The Panama Canal couldn't be built the same way as the Suez ...
Panama Canal investigates seepage at new lock 10 Investigations are under way after tests of the new locks for the Panama Canal detected some seepage. Above: Testing began in June Filling of the new locks began in June, marking the start of a phase of operational testing of the locks, including culvert valves, maintenance bulkheads and gates. As part of this testing, some water seepage was detected at the new Pacific Locks in a section that separates the middle chamber and lower chamber. The seepage was found during stress-testing through exposure to level differentials much higher than those required for normal operations, but that may occur during dry-chamber maintenance works in the future. The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) is now awaiting a formal report from the contractor Grupo Unidos por el Canal (GUPC) following detailed inspections. The report will analyse the root cause, as well as the recommended repair methodology. ACP will then assess if the pro...