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

CS Cable Restorer
by Bill Glover

CS CABLE RESTORER

Built 1944 Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson Ltd.

Length 252.0 ft Breadth 36.4 ft Depth 22.3 ft Gross tonnage 1538

Originally named HMS Bullfrog, a sister ship to HMS Bullfinch, and used for harbour defence work. In 1946 the vessel was sold to Cable & Wireless Ltd., renamed CS Retriever (4), and used for cable repair work.

In 1961 she was sold to the Commercial Cable Company, who named her CS Cable Restorer. The South Atlantic Cable Company purchased her in July 1972 to act as repair ship for SAT 1, based at Cape Town.

CS Cable Restorer was taken out of service in 1993 and given to the Simonstown Maritime Museum, where she is used as a floating restaurant.

Cable Restorer colour photographs courtesy of Bob Shackleton

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