History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications
from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network
CS Colonia
by Bill Glover
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History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications |
CS Colonia |
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CS COLONIA
Built in 1902 by Swan, Hunter Wigham Richardson Ltd. Length 487 ft. Breadth 56 ft Depth 27.6 ft Gross tonnage 7891 When the Telegraph Construction & Maintenance Company won the contract to manufacture and lay the Pacific cable it was decided to lay the Bamfield - Fanning Island section cable in one operation. As none of the existing cable ships had sufficient storage capacity to carry the 3458 nm of cable, Colonia was specially built for the task. Fitted with four tanks:- No 1 tank 45 ft dia by 26 ft 9 in. deep, capacity 40,810 cubic feet; No 2 tank 47 ft dia by 27 ft 6 in. deep, capacity 42,538 cubic feet; No 3 tank 49 ft dia by 17 ft 9 in. deep, capacity 32,121 cubic feet; No 4 tank 45 ft dia by 18 ft 9 in. deep, capacity 28.493 cubic feet, the total capacity being 143,962 cubic feet. A double paying out-picking up machine was fitted on the main deck forward of the No 1 tank hatch. A single paying out machine was fitted aft. Two bow sheaves and one stern sheave, all 3 ft 6 in. in dia were fitted. In all the ship laid nearly 81,000 miles of cable. In 1928 the vessel was sold to the Norwegian Whaling Company A/S Thar Dahl of Sandefjord who converted her into a factory ship and renamed her Torodd. Used in the Antarctic during the 1928-9 and 1930-31 whaling seasons. Then laid up until 1934 when sold to another whaling company, Norseke Hvalproduktor A/S Oslo who renamed her Sydis and was again used from 1934 to 1937 in the Antarctic. Sold in 1937 to a German company Oelmuhlen Walgang Konsortium, Berlin and renamed Sudmeer, the vessel spent a further two seasons in the Antarctic. The vessel was sunk during the early part of World War II.
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Copyright © 2008 FTL Design
Last revised: 17 April, 2008
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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 |
