Panama’s 10-year, $5.4-billion effort to add a third set of locks culminated on June 9, as tugboats guided a 255-meter-long bulk carrier, named Baroque, into the first lock. While not as large as the 366-m-long New Panamax ships the locks were designed to accommodate, the vessel’s passage marked the first full-scale test of the complex electrical-mechanical system.
“Everything worked according to plan,” says Ilya Espino de Marotta, executive vice president for the Panama Canal Authority (ACP).