>Inside the ship, workers spool the cable into cavernous tanks. One person walks the cable swiftly in a circle, as if laying out a massive garden hose, while others lie down to hold it in place to ensure it doesn’t snag or knot. Even with teams working around the clock, it takes about four weeks before the ship is loaded up with enough cable to hit the open sea.
How is that not automated? I cant believe that companies would rely on humans doing a boring and repetitive task without error for weeks on end when a single error could cause double digit percentage of time at port. Is this is just such an uncommon task that automating this wasnt worth the time saved at port?
edit: Even in the picture in the article you can see a single worker has removed their shoe covers that all the other employees are wearing[1]. Doesnt that degrade the cable right there?
I work for a company which make the full deployment line for submarine cable laying ships; first time I visited one -Incidentally, a sister ship of the CS Durable referenced in this article- I wondered about the precise same thing you did, beginning to sketch solutions in my mind while looking down into the tanks.
A supervisor comes over to me and says something like "I can see what you are thinking. There's no use - it is cheaper this way."
The point was that while the ship was in port taking on cable, it was fully manned anyway. Crews need something to do - so might as well stow cable.
That's our kit in the topside photos. Small world!
) We do all sorts of other things as well - relying on cable laying alone would be too much of a niche market!
I guess that depends on how fast you can make the cable; I have no idea how that pans out - but the cable is put onto the vessel straight from the production line (which, I guess, may have had its speed optimised to the speed at which crews can reliably put down cable.)
I am now curious; I'll fire off an email with a few questions to my liaison at TE SubCom. With any luck, answers arrive in time to be relevant to this thread.
The cable will never again have the rest of the cable on top of it. I'd be slightly worried about sand/dirt facilitating chafing/abrasion in the outer layers of cable on its way to its final resting place. Shoes shouldn't be an issue as long as you can keep mud caked work boots out.
How is that not automated? I cant believe that companies would rely on humans doing a boring and repetitive task without error for weeks on end when a single error could cause double digit percentage of time at port. Is this is just such an uncommon task that automating this wasnt worth the time saved at port?
edit: Even in the picture in the article you can see a single worker has removed their shoe covers that all the other employees are wearing[1]. Doesnt that degrade the cable right there?
[1]https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2019/02/15/undersea-ca...