A ship canal is a canal especially constructed to carry ocean-going ships, as opposed to barges. Ship canals can be enlarged barge canals, canalized or channelized rivers, or canals especially constructed from the start to accommodate ships.
For a canal to qualify as a ship canal, it must have a minimum depth of at least 5 metres (16.4 feet), although many are much deeper. The purpose of a ship canal is:
- To create a shortcut and avoid lengthy detours.
- To create a navigable shipping link between two land-locked seas or lakes.
- To provide inland cities with a direct shipping link to the sea.
- To provide an economical alternative to other options.
Read more about Ship Canal: Important Ship Canals (by Length), Navigability
Famous quotes containing the words ship and/or canal:
“It is said that a carpenter building a summer hotel here ... declared that one very clear day he picked out a ship coming into Portland Harbor and could distinctly see that its cargo was West Indian rum. A county historian avers that it was probably an optical delusion, the result of looking so often through a glass in common use in those days.”
—For the State of New Hampshire, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“My impression about the Panama Canal is that the great revolution it is going to introduce in the trade of the world is in the trade between the east and the west coast of the United States.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)