The inside story of a record-breaking canal cruise that was two years in the planning

Cruise ships can sometimes get into tight spots, but last week was a full-on breathe-in moment for Fred Olsen’s Braemar when it became the largest vessel to pass through Greece’s Corinth Canal.

Passengers crowded on to the decks for this record-breaking passage, which took just under two hours, as the ship painstakingly inched its way along the 3.9-mile canal with just a nail-biting 70cm to spare on each side.

Captain Jozo Glavic admitted that the transit had gone more smoothly than he expected and paid tribute to the two tugboats at the ship’s fore and aft, and three Corinth Canal pilots who came aboard to help guide Braemar through the narrow channel that links the Ionian and Aegean seas.

The 929-passenger ship crept along at around two knots, but at nearly 196 metres long and 22.5 metres wide – in a canal which measures just 24 metres at its narrowest point – it was always going to be the tightest of tight squeezes.

Fred Olsen started planning for this historic moment two years ago with an official inspection of the canal followed by meetings with port officials and Corinth Canal pilots. These continued over the last year to ensure there were no changes to restrictions governing transits. In the lead up to the big day last Wednesday (October 9), officials closely monitored wind speed and direction as the excitement started to build at Fred Olsen’s head office and on Braemar itself, which was in the middle of a 25-night Greek islands cruise.

Seeing the footage of Braemar’s passage reminded me of my own Corinth Canal crossing in 2015 aboard Minerva, the small boutique ship owned by much-loved cultural cruise line Swan Hellenic, which, sadly, no longer exists.

At just 350 passengers, it was considerably smaller than Fred Olsen’s ship, but took longer to traverse the waterway. We had approached as dusk was falling and at first glance, it looked as though we were steaming straight towards a wall of rock impenetrably stretching across our path.

A head-on collision seemed inevitable, but as we came closer the narrow opening became apparent, though it still looked far too small. As everyone collectively held their breath, we slipped into the narrow channel slicing between sheer sandstone walls stretching up 260ft.

However, as we edged our way through at snail’s pace speed, I was convinced the ship’s protruding bridge wings on either side would crunch into the walls. Amazingly they didn’t, but a chorus of cracking branches from overhanging trees signalled that the lifeboats didn’t escape quite so lightly.

On such tight fits, ship hulls can get scraped – an occupational hazard known as “canal rash” – and the rush of water that gets displaced can also cause issues, especially as the canal can also be affected by tides and currents.

The Corinth Canal is spanned by two road bridges, from where daredevils hurtle down on bungy jumps, while in 2010 Australian stunt motorcyclist Robbie Maddison even made a 278ft jump from one side to the other.

Yet sailing through the canal isn’t just an opportunity to admire this engineering masterpiece; it saves the 131-nautical-mile journey around the Peloponnese peninsula (which effectively became an island once the waterway opened in 1893).

In ancient times, ships had to be hauled across the isthmus along a paved road and when early attempts by Roman emperor Nero to construct a canal proved unsuccessful, it was 2,000 years before this waterway was finally built and opened in 1893.

But the Corinth Canal’s restricted size means it is too small for most cruise ships and cargo vessels, with only boutique lines such as Celestyal Cruises, SeaDream Yacht Club, Windstar Cruises, Ponant and Crystal Cruises able to send their vessels through.

Yet such a transit is a highlight of cruising through this corner of the Mediterranean, and gives passengers another canal to tick off their list, along with those at Panama, Suez and Kiel.

The Corinth Canal is the shortest of the four by some considerable margin and the narrowest, but is considered one of the most interesting because of this. Germany’s Kiel Canal is a 61-mile shortcut connecting the North Sea with the Baltic Sea. Acclaimed as the world’s busiest artificial waterway, it avoids ships having to sail around Denmark’s Jutland peninsula.

The 120-mile Suez Canal links the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, connecting Europe with Asia and cutting out the need for ships to sail around Africa, but the queen of them all is the Panama Canal, a legendary short-cut through Central America that links the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and saves an 8,000-mile 21-day detour around Cape Horn.

The 50-mile waterway, which opened in 1914, was recently expanded with new locks opening in 2016 that could take larger “neopanamax” ships following a $5.25 billion investment. Cruises that offer full passages of the Panama Canal, or even partial transits where ships sail in past the first lock (normally on the Caribbean side) and then turn around and sail back out, continue to appeal to millions.

Even though the Corinth Canal isn’t as famed, its appeal meant this Fred Olsen cruise was sold out. For Captain Glavic, it was the ultimate achievement in his career, and after all the preparations he can now relax. Though with his wife due to give birth in just a few days’ time, it could be argued that his biggest challenge is yet to come.