A cable layer or cable ship is a deep-sea vessel designed and used to lay underwater cables for telecommunications , for electric power transmission , military, or other purposes. Cable ships are distinguished by large cable sheaves for guiding cable over bow or stern or both. Bow sheaves, some very large, were characteristic of all cable ships in the past, but newer ships are tending toward having stern sheaves only, as seen in the photo of CS Cable Innovator at the Port of Astoria on this page. The names of cable ships are often preceded by "C.S." as in CS Long Lines .
31-745: The Cable Ship Mackay-Bennett was a transatlantic cable-laying and cable-repair ship registered at Lloyd's of London as a Glasgow vessel but owned by the American Commercial Cable Company . She is notable for being the ship that recovered the majority of the bodies after the sinking of the Titanic . The ship was commissioned by the USA-based Commercial Cable Company from then noted River Clyde -based warship builders John Elder & Co. at their Fairfield Yards. The company incorporated
62-467: A brake system that allows the flow of cable to be controlled or stopped if a problem arises. A common system used is a fleeting drum, a mechanical drum fitted with eoduldes (raised surfaces on the drum face) that help slow and guide the cable into the LCE. Cable ships also use “plows” that are suspended under the vessel. These plows use jets of high-pressure water to bury cable three feet (0.91 m) under
93-433: A cable repair ship. To ensure that cable is laid and retrieved properly, specially designed equipment must be used. Different equipment is used on cable-laying ships depending on what their job requires. In order to retrieve damaged or mislaid cable, a grapple system is used to gather cable from the ocean floor. There are several types of grapples, each with certain advantages or disadvantages. These grapples are attached to
124-407: A depth of 9,000 feet (2,700 m). The purpose of Zeus was to be a cable ship that could do anything required of it, so the ship was built to be able to lay and retrieve cable from either the bow or the stern with ease. This design was similar to that of the first cable ship, Great Eastern . Zeus was built to be as maneuverable as possible so that it could fulfill both roles: as a cable layer or
155-498: A fair speed to reach operation areas. Modern cable ships differ greatly from their predecessors. There are two main types of cable ships: cable repair ships and cable-laying ships. Cable repair ships, like the Japanese Tsugaru Maru , tend to be smaller and more maneuverable; they are capable of laying cable, but their primary job is fixing or repairing broken sections of cable. A cable-laying ship, like Long Lines ,
186-591: A hold capable of holding the 125 coffins and ice forming part of the exercise to recover bodies. The ship became notable as the main vessel contracted by the White Star Line to carry out the difficult task of recovering the bodies left floating in the North Atlantic , after the Titanic disaster. The task was further motivated by Joseph Astor's announcement of a $ 100,000 reward for the ship recovering
217-592: A number of then new and original features into the cable ship. It was one of the first ships built from steel rather than iron, and she had a relatively deep keel design to both accommodate as much cable as possible and to keep the ship stable in the Atlantic Ocean swells. The design was also very hydrodynamic to keep her fuel efficient and fast in operation. The hull design included bilge keels to keep her stable, and she had two rudders, one fore and one aft, to maximize manoeuvrability. Named for two founders of
248-645: A seven-day recovery operation, the CS Mackay-Bennett had: The crew split the $ 100,000 reward for Astor's body (around $ 2500 each). Using some of that money they paid for the burial of the body of the unknown child and his headstone monument - the casket was marked by a copper plaque reading "Our Babe". The entire ship's crew, together with the majority of the population of Halifax, attended the child's burial at Fairview Lawn Cemetery on 4 May 1912. With improved DNA testing , on 30 July 2007 Canadian researchers at Lakehead University announced that testing of
279-620: A ship enter a Canadian port, the captain agreed to a system whereby: At 19:00 on 23 April, CS Mackay-Bennett lay briefly alongside the Allan Shipping Line's Sardinian (en route to Saint John, New Brunswick ), to collect additional canvas. Just after midnight on 26 April, CS Mackay-Bennett rendezvoused with the Anglo-American Telegraph Company 's CS Minia to get extra embalming supplies, before departing for Halifax at dawn that day. After
310-418: Is designed to lay new cables. Such ships are bigger than repair ships and less maneuverable; their cable storage drums are also larger and are set in parallel so one drum can feed into another, allowing them to lay cable much faster. These ships are also generally equipped with a linear cable engine (LCE) that helps them lay cable quickly. By locating the manufacturing plant near a harbor, cable can be loaded into
341-408: Is that there is a bulge where they are spliced in to the cable and this causes problems passing through the sheave . British ships, such as HMTS Monarch and HMTS Alert solved the problem by providing a trough for the repeater to bypass the sheave. A rope connected in parallel to the repeater went through the sheave which pulled the cable back in to the sheave after the repeater had passed. It
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#1732791010408372-763: The 1830s the company had offices in Glasgow , Liverpool and Montreal . All five of Captain Allan's sons were actively involved with the business, but it was his second son, Sir Hugh Allan , who spearheaded the second generation. In 1854, Hugh launched the Montreal Ocean Steamship Company as part of the Allan Line, and two years later ousted Samuel Cunard to take control of the Royal Mail contract between Britain and North America . By
403-584: The 1880s, the Allan Line was the world's largest privately owned shipping concern. In 1891, the company took over the State Line (founded 1872) and was often referred to as the Allan & State Line. In 1897, Andrew Allan amalgamated the various branches of the Allan shipping empire under one company, Allan Line Steamship Company Ltd., of Glasgow . The company by then had added offices in Boston and London . In 1917, under Sir Montagu Allan , who represented
434-837: The Commercial Cable Company, John W. MacKay and James G. Bennett, she was launched late in 1884. Mainly based in Halifax , Nova Scotia , where she first arrived in March 1885, she was also often used for operations on the European side of the Atlantic, based out of Plymouth , England. The Canadian author Thomas Raddall worked as wireless operator aboard Mackay-Bennett and based some short stories on his experiences aboard. In addition to carrying out numerous difficult cable repairs, many during times of wartime danger, due to
465-676: The North Atlantic Ocean, is named after Mackay-Bennett for her involvement in the Titanic disaster. The ship was retired in May 1922, anchored in Plymouth Sound to be used as a storage hulk. During The Blitz on England in World War II , she was sunk during a Nazi Germany Luftwaffe attack but later refloated. Her hull was finally scrapped in 1965. Cable layer The first transatlantic telegraph cable
496-698: The body of his father J. J. Astor . Her captain, Frederick H. Larnder, took on board a combination of specialists and an effective mobile mortuary. Both additional and specialized personnel and supplies were taken on board for the assignment. These included: Crew were paid double pay for the grisly task. There was a hierarchy to the mortuary details as the ship could never hope to bring all back: first class passengers were embalmed and placed in coffins; second-class were wrapped in linen winding sheets; third class and crew bodies were weighted and buried at sea (116 in total). The ship left Halifax at 12:45 P.M. on Wednesday, 17 April 1912. Due to severe fog and rough seas it took
527-523: The body's mitochondrial DNA had revealed that the child was 19-month-old Sidney Leslie Goodwin . After his death in 1961, Clifford Crease's body was interred only a few steps away from the grave of "Our Babe", a site he had visited on every anniversary of the tragedy during his lifetime. Mackay-Bennett Seamount , one of the Fogo Seamounts southeast of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland in
558-465: The cable (which can take some time to reach the bottom) and keep the cable straight, the repeaters are fitted with parachutes. Allan Line Royal Mail Steamers The Allan Shipping Line was started in 1819, by Captain Alexander Allan of Saltcoats , Ayrshire , trading and transporting between Scotland and Montreal , a route which quickly became synonymous with the Allan Line. By
589-510: The nature of her work and resultant position in the Atlantic, Mackay-Bennett performed many rescues. Typical was the rescue of the crew of the sinking schooner Caledonia on 12 February 1912. In April 1912, she was berthed at Halifax during a period of long-term work maintaining the France -to-Canada communications cable. Of the three ships in Halifax at that time only Mackay-Bennett had
620-526: The ocean floor, but this device can also be reversed and used to bring back up cable needing repair. These engines can feed 800 feet (240 m) of cable a minute. Ships are limited to a speed of eight knots (15 km/h) while laying cable to ensure the cable lies on the sea floor properly and to compensate for any small adjustments in course that might affect the cables' position, which must be carefully mapped so that they can be found again if they need to be repaired. Linear Cable Engines are also equipped with
651-538: The personal diary of Clifford Crease, a 24-year-old Naval artificer (craftsman-in-training); much of the detailed account of the recovery operation is today traced to Crease's diary, now held in the Public Archives of Nova Scotia . The ship arrived at the scene during the night, so recovery of bodies began at 06:00 on 20 April. CS Mackay-Bennett was anchored close to but not within the recovery area, and she offloaded her skiff lifeboats. Crews then rowed into
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#1732791010408682-548: The recovery area and manually recovered the bodies into the skiffs. After recovering as many bodies as they deemed safe for the return journey (51 corpses), the crews then rowed back to the CS Mackay-Bennett . The captain noted that there was neither sufficient space aboard to store all of the recovered bodies nor enough embalming supplies aboard. As the Canadian Government and associated burial and maritime laws directed that any bodies carried had to be embalmed before
713-502: The sea floor, which prevents fishing vessels from snagging cables as thrall their nets. HMTS Monarch (renamed CS Sentinel 13 October 1970) completed the first transatlantic telephone cable , TAT-1 , in 1956 from Scotland to Nova Scotia for Britain's General Post Office (GPO). The Ocean Marine System Group used a cable laying software designed by Makai Ocean Engineering Inc., in five of their cable installation and repair vessels. The MakaiLay software has been used by 90% of
744-513: The ship nearly four days to sail the 800 nautical miles (1,500 km; 920 mi) to the scene of the disaster. The captain instructed the ship's crew to keep their logbooks complete and up to date during the voyage and subsequent recovery operation, but only two logbooks are presently known to have survived: seven pages from the logbook of engineer Frederick A. Hamilton, now kept in the National Maritime Museum , England, and
775-469: The ship's hold as it is being manufactured. The newest design of cable layers, though, is a combination of cable-laying and repair ships. An example is USNS Zeus (T-ARC-7) the only U.S. naval cable layer-repair ship. Zeus uses two diesel-electric engines that produce 5,000 horsepower (3,700 kW ) each and can carry her up to 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph). She can lay about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of telecommunications cable to
806-706: The shipping channel at Baltimore , Maryland . Among those aboard the Carthaginian was the Danish-American composer Asger Hamerik . While both boats were damaged, neither sank. In 1905, the Allan Line steamer Parisian was involved in a collision with the Albano off of Halifax, Nova Scotia . The owners of the Albano were found by the Exchequer Court of Canada to be fully at fault, according to Reports of Cases Relating to Maritime Law. The case
837-621: The third generation of the Allan family, the company was purchased by Canadian Pacific Steamships , and by the following year the Allan name had disappeared from commercial shipping. The 1970s British television series The Onedin Line (1971-1980) is a complex and veiled take on the Allan Line Family and their steamships. In 1891, the Allan Line steamer Carthaginian collided with the York River Line steamer Charlotte in
868-478: The vessel via a grapple rope, originally a mix of steel and manila lines, but now made from synthetic materials. This ensures that the line is strong, yet can flex and strain under the weight of the grapple. The line is pulled up by reversing the Linear Cable Engine used to lay the cable. The most common laying engine in use is the Linear Cable Engine (LCE). The LCE is used to feed the cable down to
899-519: The worlds' global fleet of cable ships. These five OMS vessels were installed with this software on August 23, 2023, to reduce failures during installation and increase reliability, safety, speed, and accuracy: When coaxial cables were introduced as submarine cables, a new issue with cable-laying was encountered. These cables had periodic repeaters inline with the cable and powered through it. Repeaters overcame significant transmission problems on submarine cables. The difficulty with laying repeaters
930-633: Was laid by cable layers in 1857 to 1858. It briefly enabled telecommunication between Europe and North America before misuse resulted in failure of the line. In 1866 the SS ; Great Eastern successfully laid two transatlantic cables, securing future communication between the continents. Cable ships have unique requirements related to having long idle periods in port between cable laying or repairs, operation at low speeds or stopped at sea during cable operations, long periods running astern (less frequent as stern layers are now common), high maneuverability, and
961-455: Was normally necessary for the ship to slow down while the repeater was being laid. American ships, for a time, tried using flexible repeaters which passed through the sheave. However, by the 1960s they were also using rigid repeaters similar to the British system. Another issue with coaxial repeaters is that they are much heavier than the cable. To ensure that they sink at the same rate as