Im­age of Galleons

Mod­i­fi­ca­tion work was ex­pect­ed to be­gin yes­ter­day on the Galleons Pas­sage, fol­low­ing its ar­rival in Pana­ma last week.

Ar­riv­ing on sched­ule in Bal­boa on Wednes­day, the ves­sel was board­ed by the Canal Port Cap­tain who iden­ti­fied the mod­i­fi­ca­tions to be made and which were in keep­ing with Canal re­quire­ments.

Of­fi­cials of the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (Nid­co) on Fri­day con­firmed that a con­trac­tor had vis­it­ed the boat on Thurs­day to as­sess the mod­i­fi­ca­tions re­quired.

Fol­low­ing this ex­er­cise, the con­trac­tor sub­se­quent­ly sub­mit­ted the mod­i­fi­ca­tion plans to the au­thor­i­ties for ap­proval.

The ap­proval was re­ceived on Fri­day and work was ex­pect­ed to be­gin yes­ter­day, once the weath­er im­proved. The mod­i­fi­ca­tion works are ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by to­day.

Nid­co said once the boat passed in­spec­tion, it would be ad­vised of its sched­uled time to tran­sit the Canal.

It is es­ti­mat­ed that the ves­sel will pass through the Canal on or around May 23.

Once this sched­ule is fol­lowed, of­fi­cials es­ti­mat­ed that the Galleons Pas­sage should ar­rive in San­ti­a­go de Cu­ba, Cu­ba, by Sat­ur­day, good weath­er per­mit­ting.