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Commentary

Spate of Cable Repairs in UK Waters

7/6/2017

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From the middle of February to the middle of March, there was a spate of outages in UK territorial or Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) waters on six submarine fiber optic cables (see Figure 1 below).:

Figure 1 - Cable Repairs in UK Waters 2/15/2017 to 3/15/2017
Picture
Source: Kingfisher, MarineTraffic.com, Julian Rawle Consulting

Nokia Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) mobilized three vessels under its APMA private maintenance contract: the "Île de Brehat", the "Île d'Aix", and the "Peter Faber". Global Marine (GMSL) mobilized the "Wave Sentinel" under its contract with the Atlantic Cable Maintenance Agreement (ACMA).

The French ships carried out repairs to Hibernia Atlantic, Atlantic Crossing-1, Celtic (Ireland-UK), and FLAG Atlantic-1 in the Western Atlantic approaches to Cornwall, UK and in the Irish Sea, while the GMSL vessel took care of faults on Europe-Asia cable, SEA-ME-WE-3, and on the transatlantic cable, TAT-14.

Source : Kingfisher, MarineTraffic.com, Julian Rawle Consulting

ANALYSIS: Highlighted in Figure 1 above are three incidents which occurred within the space of five days and all in more or less the same location. This data would tend to suggest a common cause for these three outages e.g. a trawler fishing. The other outages appear to be independent.

While the "Île de Brehat" and the "Peter Faber" had fairly straightforward missions which took ten and eight days respectively to complete, the "Wave Sentinel" and "Île d'Aix" each completed repairs to more than one cable.

"Wave Sentinel" left Brest, France on 2/15 and steamed to the North Sea where she commenced work on SEA-ME-WE-3 on 2/18. On 2/23, she ceased operations, presumably for bad weather, and anchored off Rotterdam. On 2/24, she returned to the repair site but ceased operations again on 3/1, returning to a Rotterdam anchorage. On 3/2, she returned to the repair site but, on 3/4, she moved to a new position at 51.34365 N, 2.5735 E until 3/11. At this point, TAT-14 also developed a fault. The "Wave Sentinel" returned to Brest on 3/13 to load TAT-14 cable and departed again on 3/14. The TAT-14 repair, also in the North Sea was completed on 3/20 at which time the "Wave Sentinel" returned to the repair site for SEA-ME-WE-3, completing the work on 3/24 (see Figure 2 below).

The "Ile d'Aix" left Calais, France on 2/27 and worked on the repair to the Hibernia Atlantic cable until 3/5. She then returned to Calais on 3/7, leaving again on 3/9 and resuming work on Hibernia Atlantic until 3/20. The same day, she started work on repairing the Celtic (Ireland-UK) cable and completed 3/28 (see Figure 3 below).

A search of the online Media has turned up no mention of these cable repairs or any disruption to end users. This is a testament to the resiliency of UK's international network, transatlantic, intra-Europe, and domestic.

Figure 2 - Itinerary of Wave Sentinel during SEA-ME-WE-3 & TAT-14 Repairs
Picture
Source: Kingfisher, MarineTraffic.com, Julian Rawle Consulting

Figure 3 - Itinerary of Île d'Aix during Hibernia Atlantic & Celtic Repairs
Picture
Source: Kingfisher, MarineTraffic.com, Julian Rawle Consulting
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    Julian Rawle, Author

    Thought leadership articles and commentary on developments related to the subsea fibre optic cable industry can be found here.

    MarineTraffic AIS Ship Data & Live Map Positions

    INDUSTRY PULSE: Retelit Trades AAE-1 Capacity for Asian Services… SEAIOCMA Extends Cable Maintenance Contract with Global Marine… Djibouti Africa Regional Express (DARE) Submarine Cable System Contract in Force... Tui-Samoa Submarine Cable System Final Splice Completed... Xtera Initiates Legal Action against Nokia and NEC for Alleged Patent Infringement... Basslink Subsea Cable Outage Caused By Exceeding Design Limit: Experts... ANTONIO MEUCCI arrived at port CATANIA... ASEAN EXPLORER departed from port SEMBAWANG... ASEAN RESTORER departed from port SEMBAWANG... BOLD MAVERICK departed from port SINGAPORE... CABLE INNOVATOR departed from port VICTORIA... CABLE RETRIEVER departed from port SUBIC BAY ... DECISIVE arrived at port LAS PALMAS... DEPENDABLE departed from port CAPE TOWN... DURABLE arrived at port JINGJIANG... CS ETISALAT departed from port HAMRIYA... FJORDKABEL arrived at port HARSTAD... FU AN arrived at port MINHANG... FU HAI departed from port KITAKYUSHU... GLOBAL SENTINEL departed from port HONOLULU, HI... ILE DAIX departed from port PALMONES... ILE DE BATZ arrived at port CALAIS... ILE DE BREHAT departed from port RIO DE JANEIRO... ILE DE RE departed from port SUVA... ILE DE SEIN departed from port NORFOLK, VA... IT INTREPID departed from port CAPE CANAVERAL, FL... KDDI OCEAN LINK departed from port YOKOHAMA... KDDI PACIFIC LINK arrived at port MOJI... KIZUNA arrived at port NAHA... LEON THEVENIN departed from port CAPE TOWN... CS LIMIN VENTURE departed from port BATU AMPAR... LODBROG departed from port KEELUNG... MAERSK RESPONDER departed from port PASIR GUDANG... MARAM departed from port FREE PORT... NIWA arrived at port SALALAH... NORDKABEL arrived at port BOKN... PACIFIC GUARDIAN arrived at port WILLEMSTAD... PETER FABER arrived at port MINDELO... PIERRE DE FERMAT arrived at port HOEK VAN HOLLAND... RAYMOND CROZE departed from port CATANIA... CS RECORDER arrived at port BLYTH... RELIANCE arrived at port NOUMEA... RENE DESCARTES departed from port LUANDA... RESOLUTE arrived at port KEELUNG... RESPONDER departed from port AUCKLAND... SEGERO departed from port SHANTOU... SOVEREIGN arrived at port PORTLAND, UK... SUBARU departed from port NAGASAKI... TELIRI departed from port CAPE TOWN... TENEO arrived at port WILLEMSTAD... UMM AL ANBER departed from port HAMRIYA... VEGA departed from port BATANGAS BAY... WAVE SENTINEL arrived at port WILLEMSTAD...
    Picture
    Julian Rawle participated in the Submarine Networks World Conference 8-10 September 2015 in Singapore

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