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A search on "panama canal fees" led us straight to the Panama branch of the Barwil worldwide shipping agency network. A couple of clicks into the site, we located a Panama Canal toll calculator. Enter the vessel's length, beam, and something called the "PC/UMS Net" and it does the rest. The calculator even itemizes an additional 2,000 dollars of miscellaneous charges including taxes, telexes, and fumigation fees. Since we're not very sea-savvy, we found ourselves wondering what PC/UMS Net was -- we had a hunch it was a measurement of weight, but it sounded more complicated than roadside truck scales. We returned
to our search results and clicked on "web page matches," which took us to the Zonian Web Site. It offers a nostalgic look at the history of the now-defunct Panama Canal Zone. We clicked on "How the Panama Canal works" and viewed a Java animation demonstrating how a ship navigates the canal, from the Pacific to the Atlantic through a complex series of locks. From the site, we also gleaned these relevant facts: The highest Canal toll was $141,344.91, charged to a cruise ship called the Crown Princess, and the lowest toll ever paid was 36 cents by Richard Halliburton, who swam the Canal in 1928. We still wanted to find more about PC/UMS Net, so we consulted the
official bilingual site of the Panama Canal Authority. On the toll assessment page, we learned that the rules of the game had changed back in 1994, in order to comply with a new, worldwide standard for measuring the weight of vessels. This system is referred to as the Panama Canal Universal Measurement System (PC/UMS). Using this system, the weight of a vessel is calculated by applying a mathematical formula to its total volume. Non-cargo ships are assessed based on the vessel's water displacement. Final notes: It's nearly 8,000 miles shorter to traverse the Canal than to go around South America... that's a huge savings in fuel and time. And swimming the Canal is not
recommended these days.
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