A Short History of the Panama Canal

…with help from Eric Bauhaus, author of the Panama Cruising Guide and sailor of over 50 transits through the Canal!

One of the highlights of our trip is going through the Panama Canal. 

Friday, 6 May was D-Day for us, the boat was measured and forms were completed two weeks ago so we’re ready to roll.  On our first sail into Shelter Bay Marina and on trips into Panama City we have seen the lots of  vessels, a good few of them cargo and tankers, all anchored awaiting their turn to pass through.

Here’s a short history of the building of the Canal.,

In 1879 Count Ferdinand de Lesseps created the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interoceanique de Panama (CUCIP).  Colombia granted the Societe Civile the exclusive privilege for 99 years to construct a waterway across the isthmus of Panama.  In return the CUCIP was obligated to deposit 750,000 francs into a London bank no later than 1882.  Colombia was also to receive 5% of the gross revenues in the first 25 years of operation, 6% for the next 25 years, 7% for the next 25 years and 8% for the final 25 years, before the Canal reverted to the Republic of Colombia. 

Another clause in the contract was that the minimum payment was never to be less than $250,000 which was what Colombia had been earning with the Panama Railroad.  Colombia conceded 1,235,000 acres of land for the Canal, plus a strip of land each side of the Canal.  At the end of 99 years the canal, together with all the equipment would revert to Colombia.  It was scheduled to be operational in 1892 at an estimated cost of 1,070,000,000 francs.  Including interest, the total was estimated at 1,200,000,000 francs – about three times the cost of de Lesseps’ sea-level Suez Canal. 

Work officially began in 1880.  However, even with the skill of the French engineers it could not overcome the diseases or harsh geographic and climatic conditions on the isthmus.  Fiscal mismanagement brought the whole enterprise to financial ruin in 1899.  The French effort cost 1,435,000,000 francs (US$285,000,000) and, more importantly, cost over 20,000 lives.

In 1894 a second French Company, the Compagnie Nouvelle du Canal de Panama resumed work on the Canal.  Their technical committee recommended the construction of a lock-type canal because of the heavy Chagres River floods.  This company was unable to obtain funding from the French government or private investment and went into bankruptcy which forced them to sell all the equipment as well as rights and ownership to the United States Government.  President Roosevelt didn’t have a very positive opinion of the Colombian Government.  He felt they were greedy in wanting a largely increased payment for the property and concession.  He said information had reached the White House that the state of Panama, which embraced all the proposed Canal Zone, stood ready to secede from Colombia and enter into a treaty with the USA if the Colombia Congress failed to ratify the Canal Treaty.  In return the President of the USA would recognize the new government and would appoint a minister to negotiate and sign a Canal treaty. 

In 1903 following Panama’s declaration of independence from Colombia, Panama and the USA signed the Hay-Bujnau-Varilla Treaty by which the USA undertook the construction of the canal.  It took ten years, with the labour of more than 75,000 men and women and almost US$400,000,000 to complete.  The builders faced unprecedented problems such as landslides, the enormity of the locks and the sheer amount of excavation required.  New communities had to be established to organize work on a scale never seen before, and they suffered the same tropical diseases as the French companies before them.

The Panama Canal opened to traffic on 15 August 1914, below the earlier estimated cost and without any corruption.  There have been more than 850,000 transits and a robust maintenance programme has kept it in top operating condition.  Although the basic design has remained, the channel has been straightened, widened and deepened. 

From October 1979 to December 1999 the Canal operated in accordance with guidelines in the Torrijos-Carter Treaty which was signed in 1977 between Panama and the USA.  The Treaty stipulated the elimination of the Canal administration and the transfer of the Panama Canal to the Republic of Panama at noon on 31 December 1999.  Under the Treaty the Canal was run as a United States Government Agency by the now defunct Panama Canal Commission.  This was supervised by a bi-international board of directors composed of five US Citizens and four Panamanians.

The Canal was carved through one of the narrowest and lowest saddles of the long, mountainous isthmus that joins the North and South American continents.  The two ports, Balboa on the Pacific side and Cristobel on the Atlantic were major projects of construction.

On the Atlantic side there are three locks, collectively called the Gatun Locks and they are physically connected to each other. At Gatun the vessel is raised a total of 26 metres in the three steps or chambers.  Each chamber is 33.35 metres widfe and 304.8 metres long, while the entire Gatun Locks system, including the two approach walls, is 2 kilometres long.  On the Pacific side the three locks are separated.  The first step called the Pedro Miguel Locks, is followed by the adjoining two, called the Miraflores Locks.  Pedro Miguel Locks lower vessels 9 metres in one step from the level of the Gatun Lake to the Miraflores Lake, a small artificial body of water that separates the two sets of Pacific Locks.  After crossing Miraflores Lake, the transiting ship is lowered the remaining two steps to sea level at Miraflores Locks, which are just over 1.6 kilometres in length.  Due to the Pacific Ocean’s extreme tidal variations, the Miraflores Lock gates are the Canal’s tallest.

Upon exiting Gatun Locks on the Atlantic side or Miraflores Locks on the Pacific Side, the vessel enters Gatun Lake, a man-made lake extending across the isthmus.  When the waterway was built, Gatun Dam was the largest earthworks dam ever built and Gatun Lake was the largest man-made lake. The three sets of locks are the largest concrete structures in the world.  The lake covers an area of 423 square kilometres and was formed erecting a dam over the Chagres River.  The Gaillard Cut is carved through the rock and shale of the continental divide and named after the engineer who was responsible for this section, Colonel David DuBose Gaillard.  The bulk of the Canal excavation took place in the 13.7-kilometre-long cut. 

This section was and continues to be, the Canal’s most susceptible area in terms of landslides.  Originally only 92 metres wide, the cut has been widened several times to accommodate increasingly wider ships. It is now 192 metres wide along the straight sections and 222 metres wide in the curves.  This enables two wide-beam Panamax vessels to transmit simultaneously in two directions, increasing the waterway’s operating capacity and reducing transit times.