• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Comfort Traverses Panama Canal

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS070711-07
Release Date: 7/11/2007 3:37:00 PM

By Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Tyler Jones, USNS Comfort Public Affairs

PANAMA CITY, Panama (NNS) -- The U.S. Naval hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) transited the Panama Canal on July 10, traveling from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

Comfort’s 50-mile journey through the canal took approximately 10 hours, according to the ship's civilian master Capt. Ed Nanartowich, a civil-service mariner.

Both of the Navy’s Mercy-class hospital ships are “Panamax” vessels, meaning they fall into the largest class of ships that can safely pass through the canal. Panama Canal Authority regulations allow ships up to 106 feet in width to use the canal’s locks; Comfort is 105 feet 9 inches wide.

Although Comfort’s beam nearly exceeds the maximum dimensions for safe travel, the ship’s length and draft are well below Panamax. Still, Nanartowich says there were concerns about bringing Comfort into the canal.

“The major concern that I had was getting the ship aligned to enter the canal early on,” said Nanartowich. “Early alignment and speed was the key to a safe passage. You have to be going one knot when you enter the canal, and going that speed, we lose steering capability. That’s something we had to compensate for by aligning the ship early so that steering wasn’t an issue.”

Once Comfort was safely inside the canal, eight locomotives called “mules” that run parallel to the locks pulled Comfort through, said Nanartowich. These mules are so powerful that they could stop the 60,000-ton Comfort if a problem should arise.

The nearly 100-year-old canal has three sets of locks, which raised the ship up and over the mountainous isthmus that divides North and South America.

Most of Comfort’s joint-service and civilian crew have never been through the Panama Canal, so anticipation grew during the days before the transit.

“This is all a very unique experience,” said Senior Airman Angie Rincon, an Air Force medic stationed at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. “It’s really exciting to get to go through the canal. In the Air Force, we never do anything like that, so it’s very different. We’re all really grateful for the opportunity, because one day we’ll be able to look back and say, ‘we did that -- that’s what we did.’”

In 1904, under President Theodore Roosevelt, the United States purchased the rights to the canal from the French at a cost of $40 million. From there, the canal took almost $400 million to complete and the labor of more than 75,000 men and women. The canal remained under U.S. control until Dec. 31, 1999, when the Republic of Panama assumed control under the Torrijos-Carter Treaty, negotiated in 1977.

Comfort paid approximately $150,000 to transit the canal, said Nanartowich. The lowest toll ever paid to cross the canal was paid by Richard Halliburton in 1928, when he paid 36 cents to swim across the waterway.