WHERE IN THE WORLD ARE THOSE PESKY CABLESHIPS? BY REBECCA SPENCE
T
he global cableship fleet certainly hit the ground running this year! With Southern Cross Next, PEACE Cable, and Share all seeing continued progress in landing and completion of final splices. As these projects reach completion of their wet plants, the vessels will immediately move on to their next assignments with little to no break between. According to the SubTel Forum Submarine Cable Database, 44 systems will be ready for service in 2022. This is a lofty goal considering 2021 had 33 and 2020 had 38 reach completion. For this issue of Where in the World are Those Pesky Cableships I pulled the AIS tracking data to cover January and February data. At that time, 66 percent of the tracked vessels had reached their current destinations. Of that 66 percent, six vessels were on hiatus for repairs, maintenance or crew changes and spent several weeks in
Figure 1: Vessel Time Remaining to Destination
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SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE
Figure 2: Ile de Re landing SCNext in Savusavu, Fiji
the same location. These include the Ile de Batz which has been moored at Daman Ship Repair in Dunkirk since late December, and the Subaru which spent all of January and February at the Yokohama Dockyard in Japan. Figure 1 breaks down the 34 percent of vessels that had not yet reached their destinations. Seven were set to arrive within a
