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

CS Grappler
by Bill Glover

CS GRAPPLER

Built in 1880 by J. Laing and Company, Sunderland

Length 208.5 ft.  Breadth 29.3 ft.  Depth 16.2 ft. Gross tonnage 868

Designed and built as a cable repair ship for the West India and Panama Telegraph Company and based in the Caribbean until 1902.

On the 8th May 1902 CS Grappler was working off St. Pierre, Martinique, when Mount Pelée erupted. Grappler and seventeen other vessels were lost with all hands and the town of St. Pierre was completely destroyed.

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