January 2009 – Recovered more than 500 km Outfaced Cable

Date: January 2009

Project: Cable Recovery in the North Sea. Cable IDs: TAT10, Rioja & ODIN S1 & S2.

Clients: TDC A/S, Deutsche Telekom AG, KPN Royal Dutch Telecom, Telenor Global Services & Telia Sonara AB.

When an installed sea cable is no longer operational, it has to be removed.

JD-Contractor A/S was contracted by TDC A/S, KPN Royal Dutch Telecom, Telenor and TeliaSonara AB to perform the recovery and disposal of the ODIN Submarine Cable System Segment 1 landing in Denmark and the Netherlands, and Segment 2 landing in Denmark.
A parallel request to perform the recovery and disposal of the TAT10D and RIOJA Submarine Cable Systems has been given from Deutsche Telekom AG and KPN Royal Dutch Telecom.

The cable recovery was commenced by M/S Cable One who recovered the cable by dredging the ODIN cable in suitable positions, where it was not routed too deeply in the seabed. The cable was cut and the two ends were attached to a clump weight plus a buoy with a pulling strap and lowered to the seabed in a controlled way.

Upon its arrival C/P Henry P.Lading (HPL) was positioned close to the first buoy, and the end of the cable was pulled onboard HPL and taken around the cable winch, and connected to the vessel's turntable.

When the inward cable end was secured on HPL, the cable was recovered onto the vessel’s turntable by pulling it out of the seabed. The recovered cable was stored around HPL’s turntable while the position and length of the cable was continuously logged in HPL’s Data Acquisition System.

At the shore landings, the self-propelled barge S/B Victor, assisted by M/S Cable One, did the recovery of the cables.

The recovered cable was offloaded at quayside at the Danish port of Thyborøn. Here a certified scrap receiver was responsible for the disposal of the cable.