More Cars for Antigua's already busy roads

Another shipment of cars, to add to Antigua's already crowed streets, arrived in St. John's on 29-Aug-2013 on board the vehicle carrier Patara.

Patara (capacity of 5000 cars) left Yokohama, Japan on 31-Jul-2013 stopping at Balboa, Panama then transited the Panama Canal for scheduled stops at Jamaica, Santo Domingo and St.Kitts before arriving in Antigua. Within 6 hours of berthing, the ship left Antigua for its remaining ports of call namely, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, St.Lucia, Barbados, St.Vincent, Trinidad, Venezuela (Puerto Cabello), Charleston (North Carolina USA), Brunswick (Georgia USA) before exiting the Panama Canal on 21-Sep-2013 on its way back to Japan. 

This was Patara's second visit for the year having previously stopped here on 28-May-2013.

While I'm unable to say exactly how many cars were offloaded, previous inquiries revealed that typically up to 150 vehicles are received per shipment. More than likely the majority of the vehicles are reconditioned and from my distant vantage point I was able to confirm that the ever popular Noah van and Toyota Vista models featured prominently in the procession off the ship.

Arrival of Gates for Panama Canal Expansion Project

The Heavy Lift vessel Sun Rise (formerly named STX Rose 2), arrived in Cristobal, Panama on Aug 19 with the first four of the sixteen new lock gates for the Panama Canal expansion programme. With its name change executed just prior to departure, the vessel left the Italian port of Trieste on 22-July. 

On the way it passed just 15 miles south of the historic Nelson's Dockyard in  Antigua as it entered the Caribbean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean ea for the last leg of the journey. 

According to a Panama Canal Authority press release dated 25-July-2013, the gates, weighing an average of 3,300 tons each, were constructed in Italy by subcontractor Cimolai S.P.A. and unlike the mitre gates currently in use, are designed to roll into place.

As shown in the following MarineTraffic.com screen shot, the site where the gates are being offloaded is at the entrance of the new lock currently under construction. 

Video showing arrival of Gates aboard Sun Rise

Video showing the process used to load/unload and transport Gates

Gates being manufactured

 

The Panama Canal Expansion project will facilitate the passage of much larger ships (refered to as Post Panamax class) and  is scheduled to be completed in 2015. The following Panama Canal Authority video gives an insight on the progress being made on the project.