A British cruise liner just set a record as the largest vessel to transit the Corinth Canal, a four-mile-long, man-made cut that separates the Greek mainland from the Peloponnesian Peninsula. It was a tight fit. The liner, the MS Braemar, is 73’ 8” wide. The canal is 78’ 7” wide. (See the video below.)
With little more than two feet to spare on each side, many of the ship’s 1,200 passengers could have reached out and touched the sides of the canal. Just west of Athens, the canal was opened in 1893, and serves as a shortcut for vessels going from southern Italy to the Eastern Mediterranean. Without the canal, boats would have to go another 185 nm around the tip of the Peloponnesian Peninsula.
A tugboat escorted the 24,344-ton Braemer through the canal. The liner was on a 25-day cruise from the UK to the Adriatic. Read more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPkrmTELao8
