The Corinth Canal | © mroach/Flickr
Posted on 09/15/2022 7:52:59 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The Corinth Canal is a waterway that crosses the narrow isthmus of Corinth to link the Gulf of Corinth to the Saronic Gulf...
It is believed that Periander, the tyrant of Corinth (602 BC), was the first to conceive of the idea of digging the Corinth Canal. As the project was too complicated given the limited technical capabilities of the times, Periander constructed the diolkós, a stone road which allowed ships to be transferred on wheeled platforms.
Later on, Macedonian king Dimitrios Poliorkitis (c. 300 BC) tried to dig the canal, but his team of engineers warned him that if a connection between the seas were made, the Adriatic would flood the Aegean...
Much later, in the 1830s, Kapodistrias, the newly appointed governor of Greece after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, was the first to reconsider the idea of the canal. However, at an estimated cost of 40 million French francs, the project was too expensive for the newly established state. It was only in 1869 that the Parliament authorized the government to allow a private company, headed by Austrian General Etienne Tyrr, to build the Canal of Corinth. Work began in 1882, but the Austrian company’s budget was insufficient. So the project was paused, with it restarting in 1890 by a Greek company with a capital of five million francs. This time, the job was completed, and the canal was used for the first time on October 28, 1893.
Because the canal is quite narrow, it requires regular closures to allow for repairs. And while modern ships cannot use it, tourists can; several companies offer a cruise through the canal with a departure from Piraeus port. And for adventurers, the bridge connecting the peninsula to the mainland is ideal for bungee jumping.
(Excerpt) Read more at theculturetrip.com ...
A man. A plan. A Canal. Corinth.
Dang, I’ll never be able to create a palindrome.
I wonder if anyone ever bungee jumps off that bridge.
Wouldn’t mind taking the sailboat through there one day, should we ever get to Europe.
Last sentence of the excerpt.
Seems like a great idea, y’know, for someone else to try.
Corinth kinda screws it up. Means “the place of the Khar”, if that helps. Yeah, no, it doesn’t.
That’s an eerie canal.
I’ve wondered about the transit since reading about a fictional one in, hmm, probably Clive Cussler.
They had something like that in Newark NJ, about 2400 years later. It was called a "plane," and there were many of them on what was called the Morris Canal. The one pictured below was called "Plane 12 East," and was built around 1830. It hauled canal barges up a height of 70 feet.
As you can see in the picture, the weight of a downward-heading boat supplied most of the energy needed to pull the other boat up the incline.
Smart.
My tiny contribution to Jean Pierre’s idea about the use of the Grand Gallery of the Great Pyramid is, the counterweight crib of rocks was just under the amount needed to pull the granite blocks up the other ramp, so, after hooking everything up, the workers would dogpile on the crib, and the additional weight would finish the job.
Then they and their buddies on the other crews would get on the sled that carried the granite up the other ramp, and their weight would raise the counterweight back to the top as they headed down to the plateau level.
I probably should tell him about it sometime, y’know, if I ever meet him.
Thank you. I got caught up admiring the photo.
I have driven over the canal a couple dozen times, it is an amazing feat of engineering and determination. Each time I pass, I think it was a whole lot of effort to simply avoid sailing around the Peloponnese. Then again, having sailed the Aegean, I know it can be a rough ride.
Makes me claustrophobic to look at it...
Second link no worky for me...
Those Greeks could dig ‘em deep and how!
(120 stadia on the Corinth Canal)
been there.....it is SCARY looking, even more than this picture.
I’m sure it’s worse at the ship deck level. :^)
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