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25.01.2022 Customer reps...

25.01.2022 The unsung heroes of the cable installation team are the land cable jointers. They travel & are away from their families as much as the cableship crews, but often living in much worse conditions (for example, "hotels" with no running water, dodgy electrics & curious menu options). They are usually at the shore landing location for days or weeks in advance of the cableship arriving, getting the cable from the Beach to the Terminal Station installed, as well as the system earth... array (also known as the ocean ground bed). But they still perform an excellent job in difficult circumstances, often with smiles on their faces! #submarinecables #submarinecable #fibreoptic #fiberoptic #jointer #cable

25.01.2022 Before I started working in #submarinecables, I had never travelled overseas. Now, after filling up at least 2 passports, I have travelled to all four corners of the world. My travels have also improved my family's knowledge of geography, because it can include some out of the way places, like #Wallis & #Palau. Of all of them, #Alaska is probably the most memorable. #Indonesia is by far my most commonly visited. But COVID has put a stop to that... 7 months since my last trip,... and not sure when the next one will be! First photo is of the luggage "carousel" at Suva Airport. Second photo is of the duty free shop in Wallis Airport. #fibreoptic #fiberoptic #cable #cableships

24.01.2022 You know you have been in the business for a while, when systems you installed are retired from service! #TASMAN2 was my first cable system, and it was officially powered down on 25-Aug-2017. I also installed its replacement (#TGA Tasman Global Access) for #Telstra, #SparkNZ & #VodafoneNZ earlier the same year. Some of the many people involved in the system construction & operation turned up to view her last moment.

17.01.2022 #ThrowbackThursday: The CS #CableVenture in #Thailand to install the #TVH #SubmarineCable system in 1995, and in #NewYork to install the #GeminiSouth system in 1998 (I think her last job before being scrapped). In the first image, hiding in the background, is the cruise liner #QE2, while in the 2nd image, the Venture is aptly berthed in a museum, near the USS #Intrepid. Global Marine Systems Ltd

17.01.2022 Sometimes we have to leave a "loose" cable end on the seabed, for later connection. If it is going to be a relatively short period of time (eg <1week) the cable end is connected by rope to a buoy for easy recovery. If it is very deep water (eg 4-5km deep), the buoy needs to be big enough to support a few tonnes of rope beneath it. For high visibility, they also have flashing lights & a radar reflector, as well a trailing rope for recovery. This buoy is from the CS Cable Innovator, during the PanAmerican project in the Caribbean in 1998. #SubmarineCable #fibreoptic #fiberoptic #cableship #cableinnovator #panamerican

15.01.2022 Not all #submarinecable landings are on nice sandy beaches... sometimes the #cable has to be protected over rugged rock with #ArticulatedPipe (aka #splitpipe or #Protectorshell), and sometimes even secured to the seabed with #saddleclamps to protect against surf action.

15.01.2022 To protect #SubmarineCable, we usually bury it using a #plough (or #plow for my American readers), commonly to 1.5m below the seabed, down to around 1500m water depth. The share of the plough is the bit that does all the hard work, especially the very tip. It is basically the same as a tooth on a very large Caterpillar excavator. It may look solid, but it can take a real beating, especially in sand, which can be quite abrasive. Photos attached are "before" & "after" of the t...ooth, during an install in SE Asia You can see it has been sharpened to a razor edge. #fibreoptic #fiberoptic #telecoms

15.01.2022 A good seabed #route #survey is the foundation of a modern #submarinecable system. It doesn't matter how much money you spend on the rest of the system, if you cut corners with the route survey, the rest of the system will remain shaky & prone to failure. This photo shows all the activities for a modern cable survey in one #panoramic shot: - Deepwater survey vessel (>20m water depth) - Shallow water survey vessel (3-20m WD)... - FRC (<3m WD inside a lagoon) - land team (topographical) - #Drone (aerial imagery around the beach manhole) Photo courtesy of #EGSSurvey during the #Tui #Samoa cable system, supplied & installed by #ASN

13.01.2022 Cable Lay Lessons 101: How do you efficiently connect 3 different landings? With a Branching Unit (BU)! The first image shows the recent Coral Sea Cable System (CS2) connecting PNG, Australia & Solomon Islands with a BU. A BU has 3 legs: 2 branches at one end (B+C), and a trunk (A) at the other. The B branch is installed, in this example all the way from PNG to the BU. The B cable branch is buoyed off, in this case in 4.5km water depth. The cableship then sailed to the next ...landing, and laid the C cable branch all the way from Solomon Islands back to the BU. The ship recovers the buoyed off B branch cable, joins them both to the BU body, then launches the BU into the water, laying cable A (trunk) to the south. There are a lot of subtleties to this, and a few minor variations, but that is the basic principle. #submarinecables #SubmarineCable #coralseacablesystem #fibreoptic #fiberoptic #CABLE #cableships #LifeAtSea #offshore

13.01.2022 Cable Installation 101 - PLGR & RC. Before a #cable can be laid & plough buried, generally in waters <1500m depth, a Pre-Lay Grapnel Run (PLGR) operation is performed. This involves dragging a specialised hook arrangement along the seabed, to clear all debris such as abandoned fishing nets, wire ropes, etc from the route. This is to avoid damaging the plough when it is trying to bury the cable. The types of hooks, or grapnels, used can vary depending on the type of seabed, an...d the sort of debris you might be expecting. Some grapnels are designed to catch, and others are designed to cut. A similar operation, usually performed at the same time, is a Route Clearance (RC). This also involves dragging a specialised hook along the seabed, but this time you are targeting existing, but Out of Service (OOS) cables that run across the route. If you tried to plough through these, they would tangle up the plough and cause a lot of damage. Photos show: - a typical grapnel arrangement (comprising 3 different types) - a plough when the route was not cleared properly - an extra large grapnel - an example of the sort of debris that can be found... an old aircraft engine! #SubmarineCable #submarinecables #cableships #fibreoptic #fiberoptic

12.01.2022 Before I started in #SubmarineCable, I had only flown a handful of times, and had never travelled overseas. This photo shows 766 boarding passes accumulated during my work to date, covering all continents (except for Antarctica ). As I am sure is the case with a lot in the industry, this year has been very different, with my last flight being 8 months ago, and not sure when the next will be... feet are definitely itchy! #fibreoptic #traveller #travel #frequentflyer #COVID19

11.01.2022 This is what happens when you have an inexperienced operator use a #crane on a #barge, & not know to be careful of the swell. Took them several hours to unhook, and required a little remedial work to straighten the boom cross member. This was onboard the #Smit barge IBIS during a 3-pack #shoreend at #Ancol, #Jakarta in 1995. #Submarinecables installed were #JASURAUS, #JakartaSurabaya and #APCN. Installer was Oceaneering for #ASN

11.01.2022 Another one bites the dust... Originally in service in 1994, PacRimWest (PRW) connected Sydney to Guam with just over 7000km of cable. In 2012, 1600km of the deepsea cable was recovered and re-laid, and the system was diverted into Port Moresby, becoming the APNG2 system. I was involved in a small way in the PRW installation, but was the Marine Project Manager for the recovery/re-lay of APNG2, which had many challenges. These included surveying an area of seabed which was l...iterally uncharted... the navigation charts were blank! Also, juggling the recovered cable so that it conformed as much as possible to the seabed survey. This is very different to usual process where we custom build the cable to be exactly what we need based on the seabed survey. Capacity of this system was just over 1Gb/s, which is small fry compared to the multi-Terabit systems of today, but it served its purpose. This is a photo today (hot off the press) at the official shut down & retirement of the system. #submarinecables #cableships #ASN #Telstra #pngdataco

11.01.2022 #ThrowbackThursday: The #CKC (China Korea Cable) landing in Korea, near Taean. Took place from the CS #Flexservice3 on ANZAC Day (25th April) 1995. The date sticks in my mind, as I was riding to the beach on a landing craft... I think this was FX3's first job under the #SBSS flag, before she was renamed CS #FuLai. #SubmarineCable #fibreoptic #fiberoptic #cableship... #Korea #ANZAC See more

10.01.2022 Sometimes #submarinecable installations do not go according to plan, and sometimes we experience what is politely referred to as "external aggression events". First photo shows a double #armour #cable loop pulled tighter than it should, due to a #plough incident. Surprisingly there was no #fibre or electrical #fault. Second image shows the end result of when a tanker drops #anchor where it shouldn't, and gets caught on the cable. This is what causes your internet to slow down!

09.01.2022 #ThrowbackThursday: Most modern #cableships are DP2, meaning they have thrusters, are very maneuverable & powerful, allowing them to operate self-sufficiently. Back in the 90's, when a #submarinecable had to be #plough buried, tugs were required to help the cableship with all the positioning & towing, leaving the cableship as almost just a floating cable storage tank. Generally 1 tug provided the "pull" and the other one helped with positioning. This photo is from 1997 of the... CS #CableVenture, installing #GeminiSouth cable system out of #Manasquan, #NewJersey. Even though the lay was in the Atlantic, the tugs were sourced from #HongKong! This was Cable Venture's last job, before she was scrapped.

07.01.2022 Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) are a common tool to work on submarine cables on the seabed, such as inspection, repair & remedial burial. ROVs use hydraulically powered thrusters to move around in the water. Sometimes the ROVs can be difficult to handle due to strong currents, or electrical/mechanical failures. In this case (from the early 90's, on the CS Pacific Guardian), the cause of the handling difficulty was a little unusual, due to an over-inquisitive shark... Curio...sity killed the cat! #SubmarineCable #cableship #fibreoptic #fiberoptic #offshore #RoV #cirrus Global Marine Systems Ltd #pacificguardian

07.01.2022 After nearly 30 years in the #submarinecable game, I still really enjoy taking people on guided tours around #cableships. Especially first time purchasers. It is one thing to spend many months looking at photos & drawings & spec sheets, but when people finally see in real life 4000km of their #cable in the tank, and stand next to the #plough, they inevitably go "Wow!" Even the non-technical ones!

05.01.2022 #ThrowbackThursday. Back in "ye olden days", #lifeatsea was just a little bit easier, because #cableships often had full wet bars onboard. This is the bar of the CS Cable Innovator in 1998, during the installation of the Pan American #submarinecable system in the #Caribbean. As much as I love a beer, I do recognise the safety advantages of not allowing alcohol onboard now. And it helps with keeping the weight down

05.01.2022 Every so often, you are in the right place at the right time... during the installation of Pan America cable system in 1998, I was on CS Cable Innovator in Aruba during a full solar eclipse. We made full use of scrap exposed X-ray film :-) #submarinecables #SubmarineCable #cableship #fibreoptic #aruba #solareclipse #CableInnovator #GMSL #PanAmerica