On Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:24:46 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Wed, 16 Apr 2008 02:19:26 +1000, Herodotus
wrote:

I was planning to leave Curacao today bound for Panama and have only
just found out that there is at least an 8 week delay for transiting
the canal.

I'm told that if you use a canal agent the delay can sometimes be
reduced to days. Apparently they reserve slots in advance ($$$). I
know of several trawlers that have gone through recently with minimal
delays.

So I've heard but both from two agents and 7 yachts who reported back,
this is definitely not happening for yachts. One agent said that
people were even trucking their boats across by road which is
reported to be not a good one. This stopped when the triler broke on
one such trip and the yacht fell off.