KEEPING AFRICA CONNECTED!

During July, AMSOL’s Anchor Handling Tug Supply Vessel ‘Umkhuseli’ was involved in a cable lay route clearance project off of Yzerfontein, South Africa; supporting a cable laying vessel which was running a new fibre optic communication cable into South Africa. The ‘Umkhuseli’ cleared the cable lay route ahead of the cable being laid to ensure that there were no obstructions when the cable was deployed. The 2-Africa cable system is the longest submarine cable system in the world at 24,500 nautical miles in length and makes no less than 46 CLS connections in 33 countries: linking Africa with Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia. The project will add tremendously to the communication bandwidth available in South Africa.

The Cape Town based Cable Repair Ship ‘Leon Thevenin’ owned by Orange Marine plays a critical role in maintaining and restoring the functionality of undersea communication cables, which are essential for global telecommunications and internet connectivity, and AMSOL Officers and Crew provide essential support to the Orange Marine Master and Officers.

Earlier this month the vessel sailed to the east coast of Africa, where they conducted cable repair work offshore Kenya just as two underwater fibre-optic cables located off West Africa broke. This necessitated the vessel return to Cape Town to stock up on supplies before departing for Congo Canyon to locate the site of the breaks on the West African Cable System (WACS) and the South Atlantic 3 (SAT–3).

The WACS and SAT-3 cable systems are deployed in the Atlantic Ocean and connect South Africa and many other African countries to Europe.