TRANSCENDING THE PANAMA CANAL

This discription has been edited by a Navy Captain who has made port at
Rodman and crossed the Panama Canal in both directions, several times

Ships approaching the Panama Canal from the Pacific must remain on the anchor in Panama Bay.  Government ships have head of the line privileges for canal transit.  On continuing into the Canal Zone, a pilot is taken aboard. Transiting the Panama Canal is unusual in that unlike virtually everywhere else, the ships master is not responsible for the navigation of the vessel.  The pilot has the responsibility.  It is only in the Canal and (entering a drydock) where the Old Man is off the hook and can, to a certain extent, lean back and watch the show.

Continuing, the Bridge of the Americas and the city of Balboa is immediately encountered. On the north side of the canal, military ships may make port at the Rodman Naval Station, an important WWII  installation. It has three finger piers and like the rest of the Canal Zone and tropical military bases in general, Rodman is well kept and did offer all the usual amenities for overseas servicemen and their families before it closed in 1999.

Eight miles past Rodman, Ships leaving the salty waters of the ocean, will travel in fresh water upon entering the first chamber of two Miraflores locks. The full transit is more than 50 miles, taking about eight hours. The distance a ship is raised from the Pacific Ocean level varies. The tidal range at the locks on the pacific is twelve and a half feet. On the Caribbean side it is about two feet. Mix the tidal differences and the fluctuating level of Lake Gatun and you get a pretty dynamic situation.  Theodore Roosevelt got his money’s worth out of those engineers!

After the first set of locks and a one mile transit of Lake Miraflores, ships come to the Pedro Miguel Locks. This one chamber locks raises a ship 31 feet to the 85 foot level of Gatun Lake. As the ship enters the first lock, wires are passed from shore and put on the ship’s bitts.  On the shore side, the wires were attached to the Canal’s famous “mules”; heavy electric traction engines which run next to the canal.  The ship is powered into the lock using her engine and the mules are used for holding distance off the sides of the lock.  For ships designed to optimize lock size (Panamax), considerably more power is needed since they must push themselves into the lock, squeezing the water ahead of them out the very limited space alongside and under the ship.  It is a very graphic example of the hydraulic effect in action.

Once the lock gate is closed behind the ship, the lock is filled with water from the next lock above it.  This takes from 8-15 minutes depending on the size of the ship and how much water must be used.  When the water level is the same as in the next lock, the gate ahead of the ship is opened and it is pulled by the mules into the next lock.  That in turn is flooded by the next lock.

In 1977, the overriding impression of this area was that you were cruising through someone’s very large, well manicured garden.  It was beautiful and made one proud to be a U.S. citizen.  The locks are deceptive in their simplicity, but when you look close up and consider the engineering and effort that went into the project it readily becomes the turn of the century version of the man-on-the-moon program.

At the north end of Lake Gatun are the Gatun Locks, but just as you enter, off the left is Gatun Dam which actually controls the level of the lake. It also supplies power to the locks. There are no pumps.  The canal depends on the continuous rain replenishing the lake and allowing enough waterflow to keep the locks operating on their continuous discharge to the oceans.

The Gatun Locks lower the ship about 85 feet in three steps.  After the three drops the ship heads for the Caribbean through a two mile channel. You may notice the ship passing the old channel cut by the French in their attempt to dig a canal.

From the words of Capt. Patrick Moloney