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

CS Flexservice (3)
by Bill Glover

CS FLEXSERVICE (3) / CS FU LAI

Built 1982, Fosen Mek. Versted, Norway

Length 103.1m Breadth 19.4m Depth 6.6m Gross tonnage 5662

Owned by Northern Contractors International Ltd and used for offshore oil related work. Underwent a major refit in 1992 which included conversion to a cable layer, lengthening her by 13m and installing 3 tanks with a capacity of 3200 tonnes of cable. Operated by Cable & Wireless (Marine) Ltd for three years and then sold to Sino-British Submarine Systems.

In 1998 renamed CS Fu Lai and placed on long-term contract to China Telecom. Based at Shanghai for cable repair work under the Yokohama Cable Maintenance Agreement. When Global Marine took over Cable & Wireless (Marine) Ltd they also took over the operation of this vessel.

CABLE WORK

1987 UK - IOM
1995 China - Korea
1995

T-V-H; Vietnam - Hong Kong section

1997 FLAG (With other cable ships)
1999 SEA ME WE 3 (With other cable ships)
2001 China -USA
 
With CS Sir Eric Sharp
1987 UK - Holland 12
 
With CS Mercury
1992

TAT 1

Copyright © 2007 FTL Design

Last revised: 28 November, 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: [email protected]