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Segment G1 Shunt RepairDate:14/05/2009 |
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A shunt fault occurred on Segment G1 on the 12 December 2008 which caused the voltages on the power feeds at Suva and Kahe Point to shut down for 15 minutes. The initial diagnosis estimated that the fault was approximately 1,403km out from Kahe Point station at a water depth of about 4800 metres.
The shunt fault was reported to Global Marine (GMSL) on 23rd December and a mobilisation date was set for 29 December UTC. During the intervening period SCCL, GMSL and Tyco worked on the loading plan for loading additional cable, jointing kits and a repeater.
A pre repair meeting was held onboard the Tyco cable repair ship Global Sentinel in Honolulu on the 8th January between Tyco, SCCL representatives and a GMSL representative. This meeting outlined the repair plan, tests that would need to be conducted during the final splice, personnel who would be SCCL’s representatives onboard during the Repair, the method of communications, timing for daily reports and escalations paths. At the pre repair meeting it was agreed that all Power Safety communications would be conducted by Email.
The repair commenced 11th January 2009 and was completed on 28 January 2009. The initial theory on the failure which occurred on the top of a steep incline was some sort of submarine landslide. The faulty section of cable has been sent to Alcatel-Lucent in France for further analysis to determine the cause.
Cable repair work can be really rewarding, as long as the weather gods co-operate. During the shunt fault repair, there were times of high action and extreme frustration. High action when the ship was fully engaged in the activities involved in the mechanics of a repair, and frustration when the wind and sea conditions did not allow work to proceed.
Life at sea during a repair requires lots of patience as some activities take a long time to happen. It may sound simple to cut and retrieve a cable from the sea bed until you realise that cable is 4,500 metres below you and it takes 6-8 hours just for the grapple to sink to the bottom!
There is lots of tension on board during these activities as a miss results in another 6 to 8 hours (for it to be brought back up again) before another attempt can begin. Getting a 6,000 metre “fishing line” back on board and re-deployed takes quite a long time! The photos are of the “hooks” used to cut and recover the cable.
Once the faulty portion of cable was located and removed, the next operation is joining it all back together. This job is undertaken by the jointing team. These guys work around the clock to get the job done. A joint takes around 8 hours to complete so the stakes are high as a failure means yet another potential 8 hour delay.
The whole experience of being on this repair was fantastic. Captain Perez and the crew of the CS Global Sentinel did a brilliant job.
Brian Hart
Southern Cross Operations Manager
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DID YOU KNOW?
It takes only seven hundredths of a second for information to go from Australia to the US on the Southern Cross Network.
Our network has 2 fully diverse paths out of both Australia and New Zealand.
Within 2 years Southern Cross is expected to have the potential to increase its total protected capacity to at least 1.2 Tbit/s using 100 Gbps technology that is already being tested for submarine cable systems.
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