The insert will appear as a rectangle on top of a rectangle. The bottom section will be 1000' long by 105' wide by 26' high. Adjoined to this will be the top section, which will longer, wider and higher to accomodate the much larger modern ships, exact dimensions to be determined. Telescoping support beams will be affixed to the longitudinal sides of the top section and extend down to railroad flatcars that will travel on the tracks that run paralell to the locks, for support and motive power. Flood and sink the unit, drive your boat in, close the door and pull into the lock, flood the lock, up telescopes, pull onto next level, etc. etc. The canal is to narrow for a lot of modern ships, and will be even more so in the future, they will be either Atlantic based or Pacific based, a method to float the boats is an alternative to widening the canal itself.
-- ty6, Oct 08 2002

Everything that's old..blah, blah, blah https://books.googl...20Liners%22&f=false
Canal 'Tub' [ty6, Oct 04 2004]

Probably cheaper to widen the canal if/when this becomes a problem. Besides, what do you do when two ships going in opposite directions meet?
-- phoenix, Oct 08 2002


Phoenix, I can't see one of these costing more than a deep sea oil rig, I can't see two of them costing that much. There are plans for new a new canal in Mexcio, Colombia, and Nicuragua, in addition to widening the exisitng canal to make it a straight run from coast to coast. These would be super expensive. Good point about two way ship traffic, when raised, it wouldn't be a problem, when lowered, the other ships would have to stagger. If the canal commission had enough lead time, they could probably arrange a schedule for optimum times.
-- ty6, Oct 08 2002


Son of a gun, that's my idea. [link]
-- ty6, Nov 07 2002



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