* Longtime bestseller
* Includes new photos
* Text has been updated to reflect new information
* Author is respected expert on Panama
(http://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/interview-with-panama-writer-william-friar/)
* The third set of locks, a $5.25 billion project including the construction of two new sets of single-lane, three-step locks-one set at the Atlantic entrance and one at the Pacific, is set to open in May 2016
* The new locks will allow vessels with capacities of 13,000 to 14,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units, depending upon their configuration, to transit the canal up from the current Panamax-size vessel capacity of about 4,500 TEUs (twenty foot container or equivalent unit.)
* Increased efficiencies and lower per-unit operating costs of the big ships will make the Panama route more competitive in attracting cargo from China and North Asia to East Coast ports.
* Two-thirds of the canal's traffic is generated by the US commercial decisions that affect cargo routing include transit times, vessel operational costs like bunker charges and canal tolls. Transit times from North Asia to the East Coast are slightly shorter than via the Suez route, so a migration of some of the existing cargo volume from the Suez Canal is anticipated.
Author Biography:
William Friar grew up near the banks of the Panama Canal. Though an American citizen, he has lived most of his life overseas. Besides Panama and the United States, he has called Denmark, India, and the United Kingdom home, and he spends as much time as possible traveling.
He is the author of two other Panama-related books: all four editions of the Moon Handbooks guidebook to Panama, and an eco-tourist guide, Adventures in Nature: Panama. He also has written about the UK, San Francisco, and various bits of South America.
Bill began his writing career as a stringer for the metro desk of the New York Times. He has also worked as a rock music critic, technology journalist, human biology instructor, writing coach, fund-raiser, and reporter for three daily newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Bill's work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Arizona Republic, Neuen Zurcher Zeitung, San Jose Mercury News, Orange County Register(/i>, and Houston Chronicle, among other publications. He is now head of fund-raising at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, an international research institution at the University of London.
Bill holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford University and a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. He lives in London with his wife, Karen, and their cat, Wookie. More information is available through his website, www.panamaguidebooks.com, or follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/PanamaGuide .
Foreword writer George R. Goethals, great-grandson of George W. Goethals, chief engineer of the Panama Canal from 1907 until its completion in 1914, is professor of psychology at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
