A lady wrote a story in a local paper here about her trip through the canal. She said the toll [one way] was $149,000.00. I was sort of stunned. Large ship, she said it had about a ft. of clearance on either side - Still, thats a lotta moola.........
Megastructures on the Discovery Channel did a show on the Panama Canal.
They said that the fees are as high as $250,000.
Smaller ships pay less and ships in a hurry pay a premium for getting through faster.
Yes, it's definitely based on the size of the ship. I watched a show the other day that said that the least toll paid for the crossing was 40¢. It was someone who swam through the canal.
You are correct Tom, my brother and crew used the canal 2 weeks ago, the yacht is 6 tons, 60 feet long and with a beam of 7 feet, the cost US$522.50, he was saying that one can calculate the fee via internet using the Canals on-line calculator
Richard
Hey Dundee, did you really mean to say that your brother's 60 foot yacht had a beam of only 7 feet. That would be something. Joe
Draft sounds better ;)
I thought draft sounded better as well, but it only weighs 6 tons, so that's a lot of draft.
Maybe I got it wrong ;D, the SKYPE phone connection was bad, but, I do know it's a 60 footer, and I heard the $$ correctly
Richard
considering what it would cost to go around, 149,000 could be a bargain.
Panama Canal can now take the wider cargo ships . I can only imagine the higher cost and the money saved using the faster route.
I went into the canal back in March. We were on a cruise, and I think the cost was $300,000. The new canal wasn't open yet, but you could take tours of it.
I had been there in 2012. The difference in the amount of containers being docked, then shipped by rail to the other side has been dramatically reduced. Here is what the many docks looked like in March, 2012.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10011/P10106565B15D.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1467020632)
This isn't the exact same dock, but they all looked like this in March, 2016.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10011/P1030043.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1467020767)
I'm not sure if it's a reflection of the worldwide economy, or simply the anticipation of the canal opening. The official opening was yesterday June 26, but they started traffic on June 9. The size and amount of cargo those ships take is simply amazing.
Shipping is slow right now, or at least that's what my employer, Maersk, is saying. I work in the drilling division, but Maersk's main operation is shipping.
One of the big boats that can now use the canal can carry 9000 containers. 180,000 tons if all are loaded to 20 tons each. Don't know how much weight the ship can carry.
Oil shipments are down.
On another note, eating at fast food and fast casual restaurants is down. Does all this mean we are heading into recession?
Is China shipping less also?
The canal is years late getting open and with huge cost over runs. The canal is 40% of Panamas GDP.
Interesting.
To ship a container from NYC to California it goes by rail to Chicago . Then comes off the train because there is a tunnel containers can not fit thru. Goes by truck for one day then back on rail to California . Its the trucking industry that does not want this to change.
Shipping is down from China according to the monthly news letter I get from Maersk.
I think it's good that the China shipping is down.
Too much stuff that we buy here is "Made in China"!
I think the worse thing I ever contemplated buying was a U.S. flag, then I notice that it had a tag on it saying "Made in China", I put it back on the shelf.
Just sayin'!
That just ain't right is it?
Capitalism at best. Sell off your nation and its people. :-\
The way I understand it is containers from the east coast can get to Asia much quicker .
There was an interesting programme called 'The Box That Changed Britain' and was the story of containers and container ships. The interesting nugget was the fact it cost as much to ship a full container from China to the UK as it cost for 2 men and a truck to deliver it to your abode.
Regards
Graham
Different canal, but last fall I brought a 35-foot sailboat up the Welland Canal (which joins Lake Erie and Lake Ontario). It's a series of 8 locks over a distance of about 20 miles. I was told the big lake freighters - some of them 700' in length - pay $26,000 for a one-way passage. I paid $240 for my boat, with the understanding that, if a freighter is in the canal, I get sidelined until it passes. Makes cents! :D - Jason
The Soo Locks charged a toll of 3-4 cents per ton from 1855 to 1881. It's free now.
I always thought the Panama Canal was the bargain compared to the Suez at least in context to what each one is. Suez doesn't even have any locks, just a big ole ditch in the desert. Been thru both, Panama much more scenic. Either way between time and fuel it pays to pay!
You need to take into consideration the fact that big ships use bunker c oil measured in tonnage per mile not miles per gallon and they run about 20 knots per hour .I have no idea what a container ship uses but a liner it's something like 2800 gallon per mile .That plus the time involved to round the horn and get back to position as if they had transversed the canal .
I remember reading in readers digest when I was a kid that the Queen Mary got an equivalent of 12 feet per gallon. That always stuck with me.
LNG is the future maritime fuel for big ships . Mostly for clean burn emissions. Plus there is plenty of it .
The Emma Maersk Running at her rated 80 Mw, her main engines burn 14 tons
of residual fuel each hour. Annually, that's 97,400 tons of fuel.
This yields a total annual usage of 143,400 tons or about $64.5 million in
annual fuel costs. Burning 20.6 tons/hour = 6724 gals/hour. At 31 kts/hour,
this equals .0046 nautical miles/gallon. At 6076 ft/nautical mile, that's 28
feet/gallon of fuel burned.
I wonder if anyone ever considered building a nuclear shipping vessel. Im not sure how the numbers would work out over say 20 years but nuclear feul is kinda expensive.
I think it's been tried,unsuccessfully .Cost doesn't justify means .Politics being what they are there are some or maybe most ports they could no pull into .
Things like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl pretty much killed nuclear power in this country .Besides that who could afford it lest it be some government .
I would think the nuclear waste would be quite the issue.
Quote from: Al_Smith on June 29, 2016, 10:03:37 PM
You need to take into consideration the fact that big ships use bunker c oil measured in tonnage per mile not miles per gallon and they run about 20 knots per hour .I have no idea what a container ship uses but a liner it's something like 2800 gallon per mile .That plus the time involved to round the horn and get back to position as if they had transversed the canal .
And even still tanker companies are sending ships around instead of thru the Suez to save money.
2800gal per mile is a bit high even for a container ship. At only 200 nm per day that works out to 2,100 Mt of HFO, and a container ship is doing more like double that distance. Most of the coastal product tankers you'll see burn only 30mt to 60mt on avg. One steam ship I know of burns around 70mt I belive, but her advantage is she can still burn HFO coast wise while everyone else has switched to diesel, so it's almost a 50% savings in fuel costs.
LNG is cheap and clean, the problem with it is its storage requirements on a ship. The amount of room it requires to store a sufficient quantity to have any decent range is excessive when compared to diesel or hfo. They are making advancements for it on coast wise operations and yes some ships are coming out LNG equipped, most recently TOTE who is a coast wise container company, they owned the El Faro which was I believe to be replaced by these new ships they are coming out with.
Quote from: Hiway40frank on June 30, 2016, 04:37:08 PM
I wonder if anyone ever considered building a nuclear shipping vessel. Im not sure how the numbers would work out over say 20 years but nuclear feul is kinda expensive.
Google NS Savannah, one of my cruise instructor's in college was the Chief Engineer on it. As we say in Maine he was "wicked smaart", it was like he was a nuclear engineer or something!
No way it's viable obviously. We can barely get new nuclear plants in the country on land. They aren't going to let a bunch of merchant sailors roam around with nuclear reactors! Heck they barely let us off the ships even when in US ports, I've gotten searched at the gate after LEAVING ExxonMobil refineries, and their driver picked me up at the gangway!
According to this article http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Oil-Tankers-Shun-Suez-Canal-In-Search-of-Cheaper-Route.html
It's an avg $465,000 to go thru Suez. Plus you better have a pallet of Marlboro's on hand for bribes for everyone from the pilots to the line handlers or your going to be delayed!
Quote from: Hiway40frank on June 30, 2016, 04:37:08 PM
I wonder if anyone ever considered building a nuclear shipping vessel. Im not sure how the numbers would work out over say 20 years but nuclear feul is kinda expensive.
One nuclear commercial ship was built. I took a tour of it years ago. I can't remember where it is. There was a battleship and that ship best I recall.
Quote from: ozarkgem on July 17, 2016, 08:45:32 PM
One nuclear commercial ship was built. I took a tour of it years ago. I can't remember where it is. There was a battleship and that ship best I recall.
That would be the Savannah, which is moored on display in Baltimore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah)
Wikipedia lists 3 other nuclear ships built by Japan, Germany and Russia. The Russian ship is apparently still in service.
Big issue is insurance. If something did go wrong it could go REALLY wrong, so no normal insurance company would risk covering it.