Navigating the St. Lawrence – Post-Panamax ships

The term Post-Panamax designates any ship whose key dimensions are greater than the current Panamax class, i.e. vessels greater than the current lock width dimensions of approximately 32 meters in width or 294 meters in length. As a result of the trend towards ever wider ships, the marine industry has exerted commercial pressure on the port of Montreal and on Canadian marine administrations to accommodate such vessels upstream of Quebec City. A new venture such as this requires extensive study and simulation of post-Panamax ship transits and the identification of all potential risks arising from this type of traffic. Therefore, the Laurentian Pilotage Authority, in partnership with Transport Canada, the Canadian Coast Guard and the Montreal Port Authority retained the services of Acuratek and Rimouski’s Innovation Maritime to undergo a full risk assessment.

The scope of this recent study was limited to post-Panamax ships transiting the St-Lawrence River between Quebec City and Montreal. The first step was to create a list of stakeholders that would likely be concerned by the arrival of these vessels in Montreal. These parties were canvassed to obtain information on the impacts of post-Panamax ships in the St-Lawrence from their perspective: the data was compiled and analysed to fully characterize the stakeholder’s needs, issues and concerns. Secondly, a compendium of risks organized by Acuratek’s risk propeller was developed. In light of these risks, potential scenarios and their consequences were studied: probabilities, sequenced event diagrams, magnitude of effects, spill assessments and a custom risk matrix were the principal techniques employed by Acuratek and its partner. Full mission bridge simulations were conducted with various ship models; a twin screw, a fully redundant product tanker, an Aframax tanker and a representative post-Panamax containership. Finally, the minimum safe design (MSD) tool was deployed in several waterway segments, under varying environmental conditions to assess the safety of manoeuvring and encountering post-Panamax ships in the confined channels of the river. Based on these estimates, a set of critical marine risk scenarios was produced which was further quantified by spill impact studies and the effects of interrupted navigation in specific river segments.

The primary recommendations made were crucial in controlling the potential risks and in maximizing waterway efficiency given the introduction of Post-Panamax class traffic into the waterway. By deploying state of the art marine risk assessment tools and precise estimations, Acuratek and its partner provided valuable decision aids to the client group, ensuring safe passage of these ever expanding ships plying the waters of the St-Lawrence.

Post-Panamax simulations