Both Atlantic Locks Aerial Pic

Here is a neat aerial photo showing both Gatun Locks and the new Agua Clara Locks. The picture is taken from the sea entrance looking south towards Gatun Lake.

Nice

Thanks for sharing

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What an interesting shot, Bill! So clear to see the "lay of the land" so to speak.

In the other photo you posted, of the area that passengers tender to from Gatun Lake- would that be on the shoreline to the left of the canal locks on the right?

Went looking for the picture you referenced, but I could not find it easily. Anyway the black arrow points to the area where passengers are tendered and go ashore at the former Gatun Yacht Club. There were never any real "yachts" moored there, mainly just smaller pleasure craft. The main purpose of the GYC was more of a watering hole and you can see there was plenty of water:)!

Looks like that dredge still has a lot of work to do before the new locks are usable. ;)

Looks like that dredge still has a lot of work to do before the new locks are usable. ;)

I'm not exactly sure when that pic was taken, but they started to remove that earthen plug in early September. Of course I think the Canal officials have their attention focused on another subject right now... just read an article where they found cracks in an unexpected area! Have no idea as to how that may impact things. Appears that they may have to do even more remedial work than originally planned. So they may have ample time to do the dredging:o.

Here is a shot a good friend of mine grabbed as they were crossing one of the new gates at the Agua Clara Locks about 10 days ago. The picture is looking north from the Locks, seaward. The plug appears to have been removed, have no idea of the depth at this point. Another interesting item in the photo is you can see construction of the two main support towers of the new bridge across the Canal on the Atlantic side.

Is that more cracks than were reported before? Not following closely, but appreciate your updates. Yes, hard to tell from the sea level photo what the depth is. Do you know what the controlling air draft on the Atlantic bridge is? I thought I saw it was going to be the same as the new bridge on the Pacific side.

They are going to reinforce all of the sills at both new locks... at the leaky locks (Cocoli Pacific side) and at Agua Clara Locks. From what I understand Agua Clara is not leaking but I guess there is concern for the cracking that was not expected.

From what I have seen the new Atlantic side bridge will have the same clearance as the replacement for the Bridge of Americas which is supposed to be 246'. I guess that is actual height and not navigational clearance.

Chief and all interested, Maybe into the weeds a bit, but I enjoyed scoping it out since real hard info is not forthcoming from the powers that be at the Canal.

Here is a PDF that I converted to jpeg because the PDF was too large... I ran across it from a Panamanian reporter, it is for the repairs to the Atlantic Locks. The area that they are referencing appears to be the gates/sill at the lake end. I don't know if this just a typical drawing for all the sills or just this one in particular. You have to forgive the feeble translation, my Spanish is not all that great and then throw in some tech stuff... well that is where Google is a friend!

In general the translation starts upper left and runs down the page, returning to the "next" column of sorts.

Varillas instaladas en forma horizontal-Rod installed horizontally

Cama de la puerta deslizada-Bed of sliding gate

Varillas de acero que se instalaran para reforzar el quicio

Steel rods were installed to reinforce the hinge/seal

Bearing pad con puerta cerada

“ “ with gate shut

Varillas de acero que se instalaran para refozar…..

Steel rods were installed to reinforce the hinge/seal

Perforaciones para instalacion de refuerzos

Drilling for installation of reinforcements

Piso de la camara superior-Floor of the upper chamber

Rajaduras inesperadas occuridas al deslizar las compuerta

Unexpected cracks occurred when sliding gate

Puntos reforzados en la construccion en los que esperaba alta presion

Points reinforced in construction where high pressure expected

Reforzado horizontal existente-Existing horizontal reinforcement

Compuerta-Gate

Base de la puerta rodante-Base of rolling gate

Reforzado horizontal existente-Existing horizontal Reinforcement

Rajadura transversal de 25 a 30 metros-A big cross crack!

That's interesting. Looks like the mass of concrete that transitions from the lower chamber floor to the upper chamber is too much weight and is cracking the area behind the rolling gate. Wonder if this will cause long term problems, as this would appear to me to be a lack of support, which would not be fixed by reinforcing the concrete, but by adding pilings. I'm trying to remember what was in McCullough's book about soil conditions in this area. Might have to pull it out again.

I am sure there is already posturing going on about possible suits in design shortcomings since the life of the structure should be able to operate for a hundred years.

Now this is purely anecdotal and I don't know if it enters into the problem at all. On the Atlantic side, the new locks structure was built upon the original third locks excavation by the US in the late 30s early 40s. There was new excavation for the water saving basins on the west side of the new locks On the other hand the new Pacific Locks just the opposite, the original excavation was not used for the lock structure, bedrock problems The water saving basins are built on the original excavation on the Pacific and the excavation for the new lock structure is just west of the water saving basins.

Then to muddy things a bit more, the aggregate they were getting from the Atlantic side was not meeting requirements, so all the aggregate came from the Pacific side. So I don't know if this speaks to less than adequate bedrock or not.

From what I can piece together the cracking occurred after the gates were ran in the dry. For normal operation the rolling gates were intended to rely on buoyancy to a large degree to lessen their apparent weight. Knowing that at some point the gates may have to moved in the dry, perhaps they under-engineered the structure. Now the original miter gates could be run in the dry with no adverse consequences... of course the heaviest miter gate is 700 tons as compared to 3000+ tons of the rolling behemoths.

Oh well, just another sidewalk super peaking over the fence!

Went looking for the picture you referenced, but I could not find it easily. Anyway the black arrow points to the area where passengers are tendered and go ashore at the former Gatun Yacht Club. There were never any real "yachts" moored there, mainly just smaller pleasure craft. The main purpose of the GYC was more of a watering hole and you can see there was plenty of water:)!

 

Thanks again, Bill for the helpful photo!

(I was referring to the photo you posted in this thread):

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2265193

Bill: Thanks so much for the updates! Really appreciate the information.

Thanks for this information.

Keith