The Panama Canal Authority has launched a new online portal for small craft which aims to make transitting the canal a much smoother and easier process, allowing for virtual – rather than physical – inspection of vessels.

Published 10 months ago

The new ASEM Small Craft Management portal will allow skippers to create a profile for their vessel and then provide all the required information for a transit in a virtual environment, doing away for the need for the previous physical measurement and inspection and saving a great deal of time and hassle.

Erick Galvez from Centenario Consulting told Noonsite that information to be provided through the new portal will include photos of the vessel’s overall length, extreme breadth, forward pictures of anchor extension and aft pictures of davits, solar panels etc.

“Also the dimensions will be required for each picture section, as well as filling in the normal questionnaire details such as arrival date, characteristics, last 10 ports, crew details, etc,” Erick said.

This new development will greatly ease the process of having to call or visit the canal admeasurement office as well as the complicated payment system that previously existed. All payments can now be made online, although online payment will incur a 12.87 % charge by the Canal Authorities to users.

A tutorial of how to register and use the new platform is planned for the PanCanal website, however, registration is straightforward requiring ID.

See the Noonsite Panama Canal Transit document for details of how measurement and inspection operates non-digitally.

The new portal can be found at https://asem.pancanal.com/ or access it via the Pancanal website, and click on Panama’s Maritime Single Window (VUMPA);

On the VUMPA page, click the Panama Canal tab open and you will see Small Craft Service Management (ASEM).

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Related Links:

• Panama Maritime Single Window System
• Panama Canal Transit Information

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Noonsite has not independently verified this information.

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