By early February 2009, the cable laying ships will begin their preparations for sailing to the Hitachi Works in Minato for the loading of the cable.
Lay 1 (4,700 km) will be conducted by the CS Tyco Reliance and Lay 2 (2,200km) by the CS Tyco Decisive. The first lay will install the cable from Sydney to a position some 85 km just north of BU4. The second load of 2,200km commencing end March will be laid from Guam south to meet up with the CS Reliance laying Northwards which will conduct the final splice.
To date over 6000 kilometres of cable has been manufactured and is ready for the repeater coupling.
Do the ships carry all the cable for their lay at once, or do they do it in sections, return to reload, and continue?
John
Hi John,
The ships are limited to how much cable they can carry in terms of cable tank capacity and weight. For PPC-1 we have two lays. Lay 1 will be from Sydney to just north of Madang and Lay 2 will be from Guam to just north of Madang. There are many factors to be considered, e.g. port calls, staffing, duration of works in terms of bunkering (refueling) and since for both lays the shore ends are done first that is when the ship is at its heaviest thus deepest draft all of the above factors are taken into account by the ships Captain in planning the lays.
regards
Brett