Doing the Corinth canal

[Kojiro]

Does anyone have any experience or ideas about what one needs to do to (a) get permission, and (b) sail through the Corinth into Gulf of Corinth?

[gegroves]

Sailing from Aigina thru the Corinth Canal is easy (as is from west to east). The Canal office is on the southeast end of the canal. Just pull alongside the dockspace (caution: it is a very high dock and there are no dock hands), if you are lucky another cruiser or fisherman will assist. Go inside the office with boat papers, passports and about 250 - 300 euro. Last time we went thru they took credit cards. Once entered into system, go back to boat and wait for canal control to call you with transit permission. Enjoy the truly awesome transit. You will be queued up after the commercial ships and larger yachts. Minimum transit speed is about 5-6 knots. If you have a charter boat, check with your charter company agent to see if they can pre-file and pre-pay your transit. Then all you have to do is call the canal control and wait for permission to enter - you don't have to stop.

[boatman61]

Turn up on the W side in the morning and anchor up near the beach and wait for the horn for E bound traffic... make your passage through... once through tie up as stated above and take all papers, passports etc to the office.. cost 100 euro for a 30ft Catalac 3yrs ago... and its that simple... E-W.. reverse the procedure.

[Alenka]

Are there set times for west - east and east - west passages, such as morning one way and afternoons the other or are they done on different days?

[DGH]

We've done it three times. There doesn't seem to be any set schedule at all. If coming alongside to go to the office seems too hard, they didn't mind us just anchoring NE of the canal and dinghying in to the office.
It's good fun.
David

[athene]

Take a look at the Corinth Canal page on the World Cruising and Sailing Wiki (Corinth Canal - a Cruising Guide on the World Cruising and Sailing Wiki), which has all the information you will need.

[Delancey]

I'm sure the tide has nothing I do with the transit schedule.

[markpierce]

Would find it disturbing waiting passage for the bridge to drop rather than raise.

[kennydan]

What are the vertical clearances? We draw around 7 feet and have a 65 foot mast. Will we fit?

[robert sailor]

Are you kidding??? Of course you will fit, depth no problem and height no problem, that is one deep ditch....easy peasy!