The twisty tale behind cable lays

摘要

The world's need for energy has resulted in a growing thirst for submarine power lines, some connecting windfarms, some connecting countries. However the rising number of operations that can see thousands of metres of heavy cable laid out on the sea bed has also thrown up issues for both vessel and onboard equipment. The biggest issue is that 'cable' can mean so many different things, and while existing telecoms vessels seem an obvious choice of ship to reconfigure, there are quite a number of elements to evaluate said Jon Foreman of ETA. Underpinning the challenge is that telecoms cable and power lines have very different characteristics. "Fibre optic cables are lighter, smaller and more flexible," he explained.