Panama Canal design concerns renewed after ship hits lock wall

Here we go again. The photo in this report by gCaptain, shows a head-sized puncture in the side of the COSCOCS container vessel Xin Fei Zhou, just above the vessel’s waterline, making it unseaworthy. It collided with the walls of one of the canal’s locks. While the Panama Canal Authority earlier this year dismissed reports that its newly expanded locks posed a danger to vessels, this is reportedly the third such incident, although undoubtedly the worst, since the expansion was officially inaugurated last month, and possibly giving shipping lines’ network planners yet more headaches.