Innovation in the Panama Canal: Past & Present
The Panama Canal is big business. In fact, transcontinental travel has always been big business. Legend has it that the idea for the canal was conceived by Vasco Nunez de Balboa, a Spanish explorer, who reportedly proposed the idea to Charles the 5th of Spain in the early 16th century.
However, it was the French who made the first attempt at bringing this idea into fruition. Ferdinand de Lesseps was a French diplomat, best known for his achievement in turning Africa into an island when he led the successful development of the Suez Canal in the mid-19th century. This won him the respect of many and when he suggested doing the same in Central America, people immediately came to his support. After all, it was only 80km of land separating de Lesseps from the wealth that could be accumulated from pulling off such a project!
Fate had other ideas though and the French were not so lucky in their attempt in Central America. The Suez Canal was a much more straightforward project. The Suez Canal ran through desert land, while the Panama stretch sat between two oceans at different sea-levels with a vast expanse of tropical rainforest in-between.
Canal Interoceanique was the French company created in November 1880 to build the canal. They bought the railway which sat on this stretch and agreed to give Colombia 5% of any futurerevenue. Rainfall severely hindered excavation efforts. Disease killed many of the labourers and the company went bankrupt in 1889. Around 25,000 people died, predominantly from diseases such as Malaria or Yellow Fever and in the end, 800,000 investors lost their money (totaling an amount worth the equivalent of $6.9 bln in today’s terms).
The second attempt was made at the start of the 20th century. After Theodore Roosevelt came into power the idea resurfaced and the debate about where exactly a Central American canal should be located also resurfaced. The choice was between Panama and Nicaragua. (Interestingly enough, a canal in Nicaragua is now already in the works so the region will soon have two canals.) The decision was eventually taken to push on in Panama, mainly thanks to the infrastructure and work that the French had already done. The plan was created by Joseph Ripley and Alfred Noble and included a series of locks on either side to raise ships to +26m sea level.
This next attempt took 33 years to complete, a further 27,000 lives were taken by the project, a massive 180 million cubic metres of earth was displaced and Panama gained independence from Colombia. And finally, the Cristobal made the first crossing of the Canal on August 3rd, 1914. That very day Germany also declared war on France.
Over 100 years on, the Panama Canal is still one of the world’s main water arteries. It is now in the hands of the Panamanians themselves. It was expanded in 2007 and the Canal now makes around $2 billion in revenue each year with every vessel paying a toll depending on the size of the ship and its cargo. In its infancy, the Panama Canal was a controversial project that kept many of the world’s best minds up at night and today it continues to challenge bright minds with current issues.
In 1986, more than 8 litres of crude oil spilled into an area just East of the Caribbean entrance to the Panama Canal. This was a huge spill that had devastating immediate effects on the local wildlife. Since then, the Panama Canal has introduced its Panama Canal Shipboard Oil Pollution Emergency Plan (PCSOPEC) to help reduce oil spills and ultimately the impact of oil spills on local waters and the waters’ inhabitants. The plan requires vessels to monitor, respond to and report any spills.
As a result of this new plan, many companies had to make major adjustments to comply with this new regulation. One such company is Stward Corporation. Stward Corporation offers many services, ranging from transit to rescue support to refueling. In line with the new regulation,Stward Corporation started using drone technology to monitor the entire periphery of their client’s vessels to check for any oil spills. What they then realised was that this made for some seriously impressive footage and they started sharing the top-quality 360° videos of the vessels with their customers. This year, we have seen many businesses pivot and re-organise themselves to keep agile in increasingly difficult circumstances. It was truly uplifting to see, with our own eyes, this innovative spirit alive and well in the Panama Canal. With our spirts lifted we voyaged out into the Pacific Ocean!