On 31 December 2006 extremely bad weather with wind speeds up to 38 m/s caused an anchored cargo ship (weighing 38,237 tonnes) to break loose from its mooring anchors and drift across the cable area in the Baltic. As a result the anchor damaged the Kontek cable, which is a submarine cable that supplies power between East Denmark and Germany.
JD-Contractor A/S was immediately hired to carry out a survey of the damage to the Kontek cable. Already on the 1 January 2007 the diving ship C/S Cable One was mobilized with the necessary diving equipment. It sailed directly towards Rostock to locate the fault in the Kontek cable. The fault position was located on the 3 January 2007, but the survey showed that several cables had been damaged during the storm. Their fault positions were located over the next few days.
A total of six cables were damaged on the last day of 2006: One power cable, one electrode cable, one fibre-optics cable and three communication cables.
During the following four months various vessels from JD-Contractor A/S’ fleet were used to repair and embed the damaged cables in the Baltic. These included: the cable laying barge C/B Henry P. Lading, the diving ship C/S Cable One and the diving vessel M/S Honte assisted by the tugboat M/V Lille Bjørn.
The following vessels were used to recover and repair the cables:
C/B Henry P. Lading:
1. Recovery of the damaged Kontek cable and sealing of the cable ends.
2. Repair of the Kontek cable.
3. Collection and loading of the new electrode cable from the ABB factory in Karlskrona, Sweden.
4. Splicing and laying of the electrode cable.
C/S Cable One:
1. Location and survey of the cable damages with sidescan sonar and divers.
2. Mounting of the oil pyramid at the fault position on the Kontek cable.
3. Recovery of the damaged electrode cable and sealing up the cable ends.
4. Recovery, repair and laying out the three damaged communication cables and the fibre-optics cable.
5. Embedding of the repaired Kontek cable.
M/S Honte:
1. Removing all the cables from the seabed, and preparing them for repair and exchange.
2. Draining the oil pyramid on the Kontek cable for oil.
3. Embedding of the repaired communication cables.
M/V Lille Bjørn:
1. Assistance for M/S Honte during the removal of all the cables.
2. Assistance for M/S Honte during the embedding of the repaired communication cables.
Approx. 73 metres of existing power cables were recovered and replaced by 84 metres of new power cables. Approx. 258 metres of power cables were embedded into the seabed.
Approx. 1,500 metres of existing electrode cable were recovered and replaced by 1,515 metres of new electrode cable.
Approx. 282 metres of existing communication cables were recovered and replaced by 542 metres of new communication cables. Approx. 1,650 metres of communication cables were embedded into the seabed.
