Light work of a heavy load

QUESTION

Each gate on the locks on the widened Panama Canal reportedly weighed between 2,300 and 4,300 tons. The gates were delivered from Italy. How did they lift a 4,300-ton gate off the ship and move it to its final position in the canal lock? To Accommodate larger vessels and increasing trade, the Panama canal authority embarked on an ambitious project to add a third lane to the canal, and this was completed in 2016.

The project required the construction of lock complexes at each end of the canal. These consisted of three consecutive chambers designed to move vessels from sea level to the level of Gatun Lake and back down again. each required four sets of double-lock steel gates, 16 in total.

after competitive tendering, the Grupo Unidos por el canal (GUPc) consortium won the contract in July 2009 to design and build the new locks for $3.12 billion.

Lock gate manufacture was subcontracted to cimolai S.p.a. in Italy, and the gates were transported and manoeuvred into position by Belgian heavy lift and special transport group Sarens.

The gates have different dimensions depending on their location. They range in height from 22.30m to 33.04m and weigh an average of 3,200 tons.

Putting these giant pieces of metal in position involved raising them by means of a series of hydraulic clamps to place them on a string of self-propelled modular trailers (SPmTs).

These platform vehicles were invented in the early eighties and have revolutionised heavy lifting. The world record in moving and lifting an offshore platform with SPmTs is 15,000 tons, executed by Sarens in 2010.

once raised onto the SmPTs, the gates can simply be driven onto a barge. The Panama canal gates were shipped by barge from the cimolai factory in San Giorgio di Nogaro along the aussa-corno Water power: The Panama Canal’s 16 new gates averaged 3,200 tons each canal to Trieste. Then they were loaded, four at a time, onto heavy-load carrying, semi-submersible ocean-going vessels.

The new gates were deposited on the atlantic side of the canal, the gates bound for the Pacific end being carried one by one on a barge through the older waterway, attended by two tugboats.

The old locks used two-leaf gates set mitre-style. The new channel uses rolling gates, which can be fully retracted into recesses in the lock walls. The twin gate design incorporates an auxiliary gate which serves as back-up when the primary gate requires maintenance.

For installation, the gates were simply driven into the recess on the SPmTs and lowered onto a series of support structures. each gate has two sets of wheels (or ‘wagons’) carrying ten to 15 per cent of the gate’s weight. The rest of the weight is offset by flotation from strategically located buoyancy chambers.

Jonathan Briggs, Birmingham.

QUESTION

What is the history of the yellow ceramic mixing bowl found in most kitchens? THIS is the cane bowl, known as ‘yellow ware’, named after the distinctive colour of the local earthenware used in its manufacture. It has been produced for more than 100 years by mason cash & co.

The pottery was established in church Gresley, derbyshire, in the early 1800s by a series of master potters, the most famous of whom was ‘Bossy’ mason.

church Gresley was close to all the raw materials required to make ceramics and had excellent canal links to take finished goods all over the UK and the world.

Tom cash acquired the pottery in 1901 and renamed the company mason cash & co, and it was in that year that the cane mixing bowl was first produced.

The company was sold in 2004, and again in 2007 to current owner the Rayware Group. at that point, production was moved to Portugal.

Jane Knight, Matlock, Derbys.

QUESTION

Where is the longest continuous stretch of beach in the world? PRAIA do cassino (casino Beach), the southernmost beach of the Brazilian coast on the South atlantic, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, is the longest uninterrupted sandy seashore in the world. It’s either 132 miles or 158 miles long depending on how it’s measured.

The next longest is Victoria’s Ninety mile Beach, the 90-mile stretch of golden sand that separates the Gippsland Lakes from Bass Strait in australia.

The UK’s longest beach is chesil Beach, an 18-mile-long shingle spit in dorset. The longest sandy beach is Pendine sands in carmarthenshire, Wales, which is seven miles long.

Tammy Milner, Harlech, Merioneth.

QUESTION

Turner’s painting The Fighting Temeraire shows the ship being towed to Beatson’s yard at Rotherhithe to be broken up. Are any of the timbers salvaged still in use and able to be seen today, and does any remnant of Beatson’s yard remain? The earlier answer repeated the assertion that Turner used artistic licence by painting the sunset behind Temeraire when she was, in fact, being towed upriver, from east to west.

as any seaman will tell you, to sail from chatham to London, the first part of your journey would be down the River medway to Sheerness, from west to east, with the sunset behind you. having got out to sea, you’d turn to port and enter the Thames, going the other way.

It’s feasible that Turner, being on a steamship going from margate to London, could have been on the Thames, while Temeraire was leaving the medway when he saw her being towed.

The subject in the painting is well to the left and appears to be moving towards the right of the canvas, as it would have been if it was coming out of the medway onto the Thames.

as there is no record of where the sighting was made, it can only be an assumption that the sunset is incorrect.

M.F. Milham, Ex-navigators yeoman Royal Navy,

Broadstairs, Kent.

IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB; fax them to 0141 331 4739 or email them to charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.