What happens to a ship when....?

[Dan203]

What happens to a ship when it gets to the Panama Canal way ahead of schedule? The Green Dale is on track to hit the canal either tomorrow or Friday, but is not scheduled to pass through the canal until the 20th. So what does the ship do with a 4 day wait? Does it just sit a dock somewhere? Is there any chance that it might be granted early passage through the canal and end up arriving at the port early? (that would be nice!)

Dan

[Nice1]

Dan,

I see that your boat is scheduled to arrive the 16th. You should see an update tomorrow when they finally book their slot. My guess that it will transit within 24 hours of its arrival. I think the "Transiting" column is either an estimated date or a tentative date given to port authorities. Generally, the boats get a confirmed schedule ("Booked") when they pay the fees. For "Period 3" bookings, this must be done no more than 2 days of planned transit. There are several available slots for the 17th so that may be the date for the Green Dale. After its transit (the Pacific Breeze started at around 6:30 am and exited about 9 hours later), it takes about 6-7 days to get to its first Southern CA port.

[Dan203]

Where do you find out information about canal crossing?

Dan

[Nice1]

Forgot to mention that, FWIW, I noticed that the past car carriers through the canal have been transiting the day after their arrival.

[Nice1]

Originally Posted by Dan203

Where do you find out information about canal crossing?

Dan

The Boyd website has some documents that you can wade through. What specific information were you looking for?

[Dan203]

Like how do you tell what slots are open, when a ship is scheduled to pass, etc...?

Dan

[Nice1]

you can find that info at http://www.boydsteamship.com/traffic...king_slots.htm

[Oregon]

Dan,

You will be 'in the dark' until your dealer has concrete information re arrival @ Oxnard. Keep in touch with your dealer, they really are your reps and should update you.

[quattrocoupe]

HI Dan
It looks like there may be some delays due to traffic:

[Dan203]

Nice1 - Thanks for the link

Originally Posted by Surname

Dan,

You will be 'in the dark' until your dealer has concrete information re arrival @ Oxnard. Keep in touch with your dealer, they really are your reps and should update you.

Actually there is a guy on the bimmerfest forum who signed up for that commercial AIS site and is posting tracking of the ship for us. As long as the AIS system works on both sides of the canal we should be able to follow it all the way to Port Hueneme.

Dan