Its a curious situation with the seizure of the "British Flagged" "Swedish Owned" and a Crew that doesnt seem to have any Brits?
Good observation Keith. Many parts of the UK are British flagged, foreign owned, and have very few Brits.
Doesnt make much sense shouldnt it be Sweden that is dealing with this? Why is a Swedish owned ship registered in the UK?
Nothing strange about that at all. I don't know if it is still the case but at one time there were more ships registered in Panama than there were Panamanian citizens.
A British flagged ship has to be equipped and maintained to standards set by the UK Government who receives an annual fee from its owner for the privilege. Owners often make such decisions based on the intended trade for the vessel - its cargoes' owners may prefer to deal with a particular country.
The British Government in the guise of Chris Grayling in association with its managers (Northern Marine) and owners. Grayling's word is law.
Population of Panama 4 million in 2016, global merchant fleet 2018, 53,000 ships, don't listen to fairy tales. Population of Panama 263,000 in 1900, I wonder what size the global merchant fleet was back then. You're supposed to know about the sea and merchant shipping a single moment of reflection should have made you question your factoid.
I visited Panama a few years ago and was very impressed by my visit to the Miraflores lock. When a ship passes through the Panama Canal, the ship's captain hands over control of the vessel to a Panamanian captain, and the ships registered flag is replaced by the Panamanian flag for the duration. The ship is then hauled through the locks using steel cables pulled by powerful locomotive units. Quite exciting.
The Panama Canal used to be operated by an American-owned company but is now 100 percent under Panamanian control. But I fear you have misinterpreted what you saw. Ships transiting do so under their Captain's orders but with the assistance of a local Pilot who is in effective control. The Panamanian flag is hoisted as a courtesy and it must be the most prominent flag displayed by the ship - that "rule" applies to every port and anchorage on the planet where foreign-flagged ships are concerned.
Yes but..... In my day, the Panama Canal was owned and administrated by the Panama Canal Company whose employees lived in company housing in the Canal Zone, an area of land enclosing the canal from Cristobal to Balboa. It was in 1999 that this country within a country ceased to exist when Panama finally assumed control and responsibility of the canal.
OK, it was a few years ago and I was just a visitor. I also remember hearing that there is a difference in water levels between the two oceans, I had always considered sea level to be a constant.
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/globalsl.html The earth is not a perfect oblate spheroid and sea level is not the only thing that is not averaged across the entire planet. Common sense is rather overrated.
Obviously. It seems strange that two oceans with just a thin strip of land between them should have different "levels", especially with the added complexity of tidal variations. Just one of the issues to be considered by the canal engineers. Hope nobody leaves the lock gates open.
You do realise that the Panama canal is a solar powered machine, without Gatun lake there is no canal. The lake relies on the weather and thus the sun, the water comes from precipitation.