A new cruise terminal was built in Amador, close to Panama City, with an eye to serving as a port of call as well as a potential homeport for cruise ships. Panama is aiming to increase access for cruise vessels to Panama City in order to facilitate tourism.
Dredging the terminal area and navigation canal, as well as developing the land for the terminal was accomplished by a China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) consortium and Jan de Nul. ShibataFenderTeam Inc., Belgium, the Group’s United States' office, successfully handled the project.
A total of 18 Ocean Guard Fenders with fixing hardware were supplied to Panama. These are foam fenders that are an excellent solution for Cruise Terminals. The fenders' urethane skin is preferred by cruise ship operators as they do not leave any marking to the white hull of the cruise ships. Foam fenders allow for the low hull pressure with a proportional increase of reaction and energy. They are robust and unsinkable even when damaged.
The customized solution for Amador's Cruise Terminal was designed to accommodate the fenders to a wide range of tides. The client needed the fenders quickly and the US office of the company was able to improve the delivery time, reducing it by 2 months.
The new terminal consists of a pier with 2 berths and a total length of 366 meters. It shall be able to accommodate 2 mega cruise ships simultaneously and handle all passengers, which can easily be around 10,000 at a time.
With the new berths at Amador Cruise Terminal, Panama City increased its cruise ship capacity to a total of 5 of the biggest passenger ships.