Escher.gif (426 bytes)

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

CS La Plata
by Bill Glover

CS LA PLATA

Built in 1862 by Palmers Bros & Company, Newcastle upon Tyne

Length 249.9 ft  Breadth 30.5 ft  Depth 21.9 ft  Gross tonnage 1218

Originally named Zarah, the name was changed when the ship was purchased by W.T. Henley’s Telegraph Works. Four tanks were fitted with a total coiling capacity of 20,473 cu ft. A combined paying out-picking up machine was fitted forward and a paying out machine aft, as well as a single bow sheave and single stern sheave.

Foundered in the Bay of Biscay on 29 November 1874 with the loss of 58 crew. At the time La Plata was on charter to Siemens Bros to lay a cable for the London-Platino Brazilian Telegraph Company which was to run between Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Chuy, Uruguay.

CABLE WORK

1868 Denmark - Bornholm - Leipaja,  Russia
1869 Peterhead, Scotland - Skivoldsvig, Norway
1869 Norway - England
1870 Scotland - Orkney Islands
   
Captain I.S. Gallilee:
1870 Bona - Malta section of Marseilles, France - Bona, Algeria - Malta
1870 Gibraltar - Villa Real
   
1871 Tagus River
1871 Lowestoft, England - Borkum - Greetseil, Germany
1871 Porth Crugmor, Anglesey - Howth, Ireland No 1
   
Captain I.S. Gallilee:
1873 Cuxhaven, England - Heligoland
   
1873 Oye, France - Fanö, Denmark
1873 Skagen, Denmark - Marstrand, Sweden
   
Captain I.A. Fisk
1874

Kilia (Sile), Turkey - Odessa, Ukraine


Cableships Index Page

Last revised: 8 September, 2015

Return to Atlantic Cable main page

Search all pages on the Atlantic Cable site:

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]

—Bill Burns, publisher and webmaster: Atlantic-Cable.com