Peter you haven’t worked out the difference in fuel costs have you.? Would be interesting to know. The bean counters must have done their sums. Know that going from Liverpool to Auckland was quickest via the Panama, as had to work it out one time when second mate. Can’t remember the mileage now, anyone with the appropriate distance tables could tell you today. Most of those distance tables in any case were made up from the history of ships who had done and reported in. On thinking back we only bunkered once in Panama. Going via the cape would probably either bunker in Dakar or Capetown/Durban, whichever was the cheapest. Going from A to B in a deadweight ship was not as straight forward as the layman thinks. There were also the various zones one had to pass through re. the vessels freeboard, which also meant the time of the year. Likes of passenger ships rarely had such problems as freeboard was not a big concern to most. When having to work out such distances beforehand on a Rhum line track used to pick a figure of the expected daily run and work out the distance by Mercator which was good for up to 600 nautical miles. Add all together to get the total. Had to do this for alternate tracks to see which was shorter. Was nearly as bad as working out the deck crews overtime for the week. Everything in those days was paper and pencil, no calculators and computers doing the job for you. Was still a better world to live in. Cheers JWS.
