Bigger isn't always Better, But it Sure can be Fascinating

  

Last year, I read about the growing shipping lanes around the world and the new kind of cargo vessels that are being built to carry the increased load of commerce.  The shipping containers (those 10x10x40 foot metal boxes) that you see on trains and trucks are overwhelming when you see them stacked on a container ship.

In fact, the Panama Canal has just undergone an expansion project, widening its lanes.  But the expanded canal will still not be able to handle the newest ships.  So rather than sailing around the Cape Horn of South America, a Chinese businessman and the country of Nicaragua are building a new canal across the Central American isthmus.

From Smithsonian magazine:  When construction crews begin digging a new canal this month across Nicaragua, connecting the Pacific and Atlantic, it’ll be a boon to global shipping and, the government says, to the economy of the second-poorest nation in the Americas. But activists, scientists and others are increasingly alarmed by the environmental impact of a 173-mile artificial waterway—wider, deeper and three and a half times the length of the Panama Canal.

Developed by Wang Jing, an enigmatic Chinese industrialist, the Grand Nicaragua Canal will cost an estimated $40 billion and take five years to build. At 90 feet deep and 1,706 feet across at its widest, the channel will accommodate the newest cargo supertankers, which are longer than the Empire State Building is tall and carry 18,000 shipping containers. The vessels are too big to pass through the Panama Canal (even after a $5 billion expansion is completed) or to dock in any U.S. port.

Big enough to hold 18,000 containers!

Bigger isn’t always better, but it sure can be fascinating.   And all it takes is one of those containers falling off one of those ships and floating (yes some float) just below the ocean’s surface to sink another vessel.  If you saw the movie “Lost”, not one of Robert Redford’s best efforts, you know what I mean.

I thought of this fascination with size this past weekend when we sailed by the seventh annual Loro Piana Caribbean Superyacht Regatta & Rendezvous  (the LPCSRR, I suppose).  A fleet of 17 sailing yachts spent the weekend racing in the BVI waters off Virgin Gorda. 

According to SailingScuttleButtNews.com:   The impressive fleet totals 644m (2,113 feet) in length overall and represents a range of yachts from the German Frers-designed 42m (141-foot) classic Rebecca, perhaps the most beautiful superyacht afloat, to the ultra-modern 35m (115-foot) Swan Shamanna, launched in 2016. The largest yacht is the 60m (196-foot) Perseus3, designed by Ron Holland and built by Perini Navi, and the smallest is the 23m (76-foot) Wild Horses, a W Class racing yacht.

 

Getting started just outside Gorda Sound

That little boat on the right is about the same size as Azure Wind!

It WAS impressive sailing up to the edge of the racing area.  And the scale between our sized catamaran and these superyachts is dramatic.  Seeing all the crew (30 plus in some cases) dangling their legs over the side of the boat to capture that “edge” in speed was amazing. 

It makes me curious.  I’d love to take a tour of one of these boats.  To see how it’s laid out, how its systems are arranged, etc.  That’s not going to happen, but it is fascinating to see them even from a distance.

And yet,

I’m looking out the back of our cockpit this morning, in the mooring field and beyond.  The boats here have not been super-sized.  They look less daunting and more inviting because they’re smaller.  And behind the field lie two of the inter-island cargo boats.  One has 6 containers on it, waiting to leave Tortola for someplace close by (hopefully they won’t fall off!).  More my size.

Fair winds and calm seas.

Dave