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The Cable Ship Cable Innovator in Victoria BC.
by Captain Alec Provan 2017
The Cable Ship Cable Innovator (Photo from the Captain Alec Provan collection.)
I had the opportunity recently (in 2017) to tour the big cable ship Cable Innovator berthed at Ogden Point at Victoria’s outer wharf. She was at Ogden Point, but has to move out to the Royal Roads anchorage from time to time during the cruise ship season. Cable ships maintain existing cables and lay new ones. They also stand by to address failures of cables caused by natural disasters, human activities and technical failures.
The Wave Venture has been sold for scrap and the Cable Innovator is the replacement vessel at Global Marine Services North Pacific base at Victoria. She is the world–s largest vessel of its kind, specifically designed for laying fibre optic cable. All cable–laying operations are carried out over the stern, so the ship travels much faster to the site and is not slowed down by conventional bow sheaves. It can operate in extreme weather while providing optimum protection for all cable–handling operations. It is equipped to deploy a remotely operated vehicle (ROV).
In 1995 the Cable Innovator was built in Finland by Kvaerner Masa. 145.51m x 24.04m x 8.30m steel hull 14277gt 10557 displacement.
The Cable Ship Cable Innovator (Photo from the Captain Alec Provan collection.)
The ship is powered by three 12.89mw diesel–electric engines built by Wartsilla and two auxiliary engines. This drives a single shaft propeller within a Kort nozzle. She carries 4 bow thrusters.
The bridge of the Cable Innovator is spacious and equipped with the latest electronic navigation and systems monitoring electronics. (Photo from the Captain Alec Provan collection.)
The internal spaces of the Cable Innovator are specially designed for particular cable retrieval, maintenance and repair functions. (Photo from the Captain Alec Provan collection.)
Cable Handling Area in the stern. All the cable laying is done over the stern so as to not slow down the ship. (Photo from the Captain Alec Provan collection.)
the Cable Innovator (Photo from the Captain Alec Provan collection.)
Stern view. (Photo from the Captain Alec Provan collection.)
All the handling equipment is located on a 21–wheel pair linear cable–engine (LCE) and a 4cm diameter electrically driven cable drum. The cable drum is responsible for controlling the cable lay. It has a maximum volume of 4874 cubic meter and a maximum of 8500 ton load. There is also a hydraulically activated traversing cable deflector and a two deck head mounted single wheel pair of cable transporters. They help in traversing the cable lines being laid.
Cable Drum (Photo from the Captain Alec Provan collection.)
the Cable Innovator (Photo from the Captain Alec Provan collection.)
the Cable Innovator (Photo from the Captain Alec Provan collection.)
the Cable Innovator (Photo from the Captain Alec Provan collection.)
the Cable Innovator (Photo from the Captain Alec Provan collection.)
There is a 35 ton SWL A–frame with working arc that provides a 45° outboard and 45° inboard angle to handle the plow during burying the cable in the seabed. Two 10 ton SWL buoys have also been provided.
(Photo from the Captain Alec Provan collection.)
One 5 ton SWL stores crane forward and one 2 ton SWL stores crane forward.
There are very few trans–Pacific undersea cables landing at British Columbia. Most land in the USA. (Photo from the Nauticapedia collection.)
Since 1958 the Cable Damage Committee (later renamed in 1967 as the International Cable Protection Committee) has been a voluntary international coordination of undersea cable laying activities.
Undersea cable carry power, data and scientific monitoring functions. A single fibre pair carries digitized information (including video) that is equivalent to 150,000,000 simultaneous phone calls. A typical cable consists of many fiber pairs the capacity can be significant. Fibre optic cables transmit voice and data traffic with higher reliability and security at a cheaper rate than satellites.
To quote from this article please cite:
Provan, Captain Alec (2017) The Cable Ship Cable Innovator in Victoria BC. Nauticapedia.ca 2017. http://nauticapedia.ca/Gallery/Cable_Innovator.php
Site News: December 03, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 94,691 vessel histories (with 16,234 images and 13,917 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters).
Vessel records are currently being reviewed and updated with more than 45,000 processed so far this year (2024).
The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,599 entries (with 3996 images).
Thanks to Ray Warren who is beginning a long process of filling gaps in the photo record of vessel histories in the database. Ray has been documenting the ships of Vancouver Harbour for more than 60 years.
Thanks to contributor Mike Rydqvist McCammon for the hundreds of photos he has contributed to illustrate British Columbia’s floating heritage.
My very special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.