ABSTRACT

This article analyses how the 2016 expansion of the Panama Canal changed the work of the pilots responsible for navigating massive ships through the chokepoint. For pilots, the expansion meant learning to maneuver Neo-Panamax vessels that dwarfed anything in their experience. The pilot training associated with the expansion reveals a paradox at the heart of a shipping industry that pursues efficiencies through economies of scale and automation. In the confined waters where maritime routes converge, increased ship size and traffic may render a pilot’s embodied capacity to ‘feel’ how ships handle in particular environments more – not less – important. Combining analysis of historical shipping transitions, interviews, and observations at a 1:25 scale physical model training facility where pilots maneuver miniature megaships through a miniature canal, I argue that the Panama Canal Authority's institutional recognition of the importance of ‘feel’ in contemporary interoceanic transit indexes the emergence of a logistical environment that elevates the status of some forms of embodied knowledge, even as it diminishes others.

摘要

本文分析了 2016 年巴拿马运河的扩建如何改变了负责驾驶大型船只通过咽喉要道的领航员的工作。对于飞行员来说，扩展意味着学习操纵新巴拿马型船只，这在他们的经验中是相形见绌的。与扩张相关的飞行员培训揭示了航运业核心的悖论，航运业通过规模经济和自动化追求效率。在海上航线交汇的密闭水域，船舶尺寸和交通量的增加可能使领航员“感受”船舶在特定环境中如何处理的具体能力变得更加重要——而不是不那么重要。结合对历史航运转变的分析、访谈和在 1:25 比例的物理模型训练设施中的观察，飞行员在该设施中操纵微型巨轮通过微型运河，