The Suez Canal Preface

HISTORICAL OUTLINE:

The idea of creating a Canal linking the Mediterranean Sea is a very old one that dates back to 4000 years when the Ancient Egyptians thought of linking the two seas using the River Nile and its branches. It was this very old idea that led to the digging of the present Suez Canal which is historically the first man- made canal ever dug in service of world trade and is, so far, the biggest navigational canal between East and West.

SUEZ CANAL CHARACTERISTICS

The Suez Canal runs between Port Said Harbour and the Gulf of Suez
It is a sea level canal and the height of the water level differs slightly and the tide is 50 cm high in the north and 2 m high in the south. The banks of the Canal are protected against the wash and waves generated by the transit of ships, by revetments of hard stones and steel piles corresponding to the nature of the soil in every area. On both sides of the Canal , there are mooring bollards every 125 m for the mooring  of vessels in case of emergency , and kilometric sign posts helping locate the position of ships in the waterway. The navigable channal is borderd by light and reflecting buoys as a navigational aid to night traffic.
The side gradient of the water cross section differs according to the nature of the soil, which is 4:1 in the north and 3:1 in the south.

TRAFFIC IN THE SUEZ CANAL:  

The Canal is run in a convoy system allowing ships to transit at a fixed speed and a fixed separation distance between every two passing ships. Three convoys pass through the Canal every day; two southbound against one northbound. Each of the three convoys follows a certain system as for the time of entering the Canal, speed limits and the emergency stopping distance between every two ships within the one convoy.
The Suez Canal has been doubled in four parts (78 km ), and this allows the transit of ships in both directions:

1- Port Said by- pass

 36.5 km accomplished in 1980

2- Ballah by- pass

9    km accomplished in 1955

3- Timsah by-pass

5     km accomplished in 1980

4- Deversoir by-pass and the Bitter Lakes area

27.5 km accomplished in 1980
It is worth mentioning that the more doubled parts the Canal has, the less of transit time is acheived and the more Ships it can accommodate .
The Suez Canal pilots are credited with piloting ships from the time they arrive at the roadsteads till they exit the other end of the Canal to the open sea.
It takes the ship from 12 to 16 hours to transit the Canal. The numerical capacity of the Canal is about 76 standard ships per day.

Important Note:

  1. The present rules are applied to normal cases whereas special cases, each one to be studied case by case.
  2. The following extracts of information articles/rules are frequently required by the users of the Suez Canal.

Intership 2008