History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications
from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network

CS All America
by Bill Glover

CS ALL AMERICA

Built in 1921 by Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson, Neptune Works, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Length 278.4 ft. Breadth 37.0 ft. Depth 22.4 ft. Gross tonnage 1819.

Built as a cable repair ship for All America Cables and based for most of her career in the Caribbean, but also undertook repair work on the west coast of South America when required. Remained in service until the summer of 1961 when sold for scrap to a breakers yard in Charleston, North Carolina arriving there on 13 September.

Fitted with four cable tanks, three forward and one aft. Dimensions were No.1 18.0 ft dia. by 6 ft 6 ins high. No 2 Outer 25.0 ft dia. by 11.0 ft high, inner 15.0 ft dia. by 11.0 ft high, No 3 Outer 26.0 ft dia by 11.0 ft high, inner 15.0 ft dia by 11.0 ft high: No 4 18.0 ft dia by 21.0 ft high. Two completely separate combined paying out-picking up machines were mounted forward of No 1 tank on the upper deck with the controls being located on the awning deck. No paying out machine was provided aft but the cable could be fed by means of rollers from the forward machines. Three bow sheaves and one stern sheave, all 3 ft 3 ins in diameter, were fitted.

For personal stories of life with All America Cables, see
George S. Watson's Remembrances of a Cable Operator
and Captain Frederick Hack and CS All America.

Research Material Needed

The Atlantic Cable website is non-commercial, and its mission is to make available on line as much information as possible.

You can help - if you have cable material, old or new, please contact me. Cable samples, instruments, documents, brochures, souvenir books, photographs, family stories, all are valuable to researchers and historians.

If you have any cable-related items that you could photograph, copy, scan, loan, or sell, please email me: billb@ftldesign.com