Hello, there is some discrepancy in the reports as to the clearance of the road bridge over the Suez Canal, whether it is 68 m or 70 m. If you have been under it with a very TALL mast, can you let me know how tall your ship is, and whether you just barely cleared it or what? Help would be most appreciated.
Suez Canal Bridge Yes, thank you. I have been to that website, as well as websites of some of the companies involved in the building of the bridge. They tend to say 70 m clearance. However, the Suez Canal Authority says 68 m. I don't know who to believe! We're building a new yacht, you see, and need to know what height mast will make it under. It's the sort of thing we want to be pretty sure about before we go ahead with a 70 m mast! Thank you though.
I'm not sure that I see the relevance of the question about whether there is a 68m or 70m clearance under the bridge. Mirabella V was built with a mast that would not allow it to use the Panama canal. Whether or not it's 68m or 70m, I reckon that rising sea-levels as a result of global warming over the future life-expectancy of your yacht will render the question of 2 metres irrelevant. Can't you simply promote the new yacht "as being too high to pass through the Suez Canal" as a major "plus" point - almost a mark of prestige...?! If your owner can't afford the time required to go via the Cape of Good Hope, surely he can afford 2 identical sailboats, one for Meduse, the other for Induse (I was always confused by Paul Allen never naming his motoryachts Meduse and not also Caruse or Pacuse for the others...)?! Also, surely it makes no difference if the normal mast clearance is 68 or 70m? Provided you built-in the necessary ballast tanks, you could easily traverse with the mast inclined by say 5° or so. Failing that, then simply hire the US carrier in the photos above to precede your passage: "possible enemy combattants were spotted on the bridge, unlike the infamous incident involving the other US warship and the lighthouse, in this case it was possible to annihilate both without any change of course..."?!
Hi, I got this off an article about a well known large sailing yacht that I know for sure has been through both ditches. At 200 foot the masts are the maximum height allowed to pass under various bridges worldwide including along the Panama Canal.
When it comes to long structures under tension, like power cables over rivers and bridges over large expanses, ambient temperatures will come into play. A hot day versus a cold one could change the effective height by expansion/contraction of the structure. I learned of this from Ft. Lauderdale City engineers when asking about taking a high-masted motorsailer up the New River under the high-tension lines near the 7th Avenue bridge. This is not a wide part of the river, yet the difference in height over the water varied by a few feet depending on the time of the year. Another caveat they mentioned was that the mast didn't have to actually touch the wires: too near an approach might result in arcing proving a third corollary to that old adage of Closeness Counts in Horseshoes and Hand Grenades.
Hi, I have it from a reliable source that the max air draft of EOS is 60m, I am told this is less than perfect for the size of the boat but it allows it to pass under the important bridges that span canals. If you see on the news that she hit a bridge today we will know that there was a mistake in the calculations.
