(With video) The official Panama Canal Expansion inauguration is planned for Sunday 26 June. This was announced during the inauguration ceremony of the Canal's Scale Model Manoeuvring Training Facility.
The training facility will provide additional hands-on experience to pilots and tugboat captains to operate in the Expanded Panama Canal.
Scale Model Manoeuvring Training Facility
The innovative 35.3-acre training facility features two lakes connected by a channel modeled after the Canal's Culebra Cut. The new facility features docking bays, replicas of the new and existing locks, gates, and chambers, all at a 1:25 scale.
The facility is equipped with a number of meticulously created scale model Panama Canal tugboats, as well as ships built in France at Port Revel, including bulk carriers modeled after the Nord Delphinus, and a container ship modeled after the Maersk Edinburgh. In addition, a liquid natural gas (LNG) ship will be delivered by September 2016.
It also features wave and wind generators to provide a realistic, hands-on training experience for Canal pilots and tugboat captains to prepare them for the opening of the expanded waterway. It complements the training already provided at the Center of Simulation, Research and Maritime Development (SIDMAR) through immersive, 360-degree training simulations and courses.
Panama Canal Expansion Program
The largest infrastructure project since the waterway’s original construction, the Panama Canal Expansion Programme will create a new lane of traffic along the Canal through the construction of a new set of locks, increasing the waterway’s capacity. The new locks will have three chambers, water-saving basins, lateral filling and emptying system & rolling gates.
Official Inauguration Expanded Canal
The Expansion Program is currently 97 per cent complete. Final testing will be conducting in the following weeks, leading up to the official inauguration of the Expanded Canal on 26 June.
The video below shows the Panama Canal expansion progress update of March 2016 (by the Panama Canal Authority, ACP). The picture at the top is a still from the same video.
