History of the Atlantic Cable & Submarine Telegraphy

	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

CS COLONIA
Official Number 115810

CS Colonia at Greenwich, 1906
Image courtesy of
The East London Postcard Site

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.

CS Colonia aground in Fox Bay, Fox Island, near Canso (Nova Scotia) while laying the 1905 Canso - Waterville - Western super Mare cable for the Commercial Cable Co. To enable Colonia to be floated off the cable was off-loaded into the Mackay Bennett, seen in the background.

Postcard is endorsed “Colonia cable ship which was on the rocks at Fox Bay. I was on board. Florence.”

Watercolour of CS Colonia dated 1922
Image courtesy of Bryan & Linda Davis

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.

CABLE WORK

Capt. H. Woodcock:
1901	St Vincent, Cape Verde Islands - Fayal, Azores
1902	Bamfield, Vancouver Island, Canada - Fanning Island
1903	Manila, Philippines - Guam - Midway - Honolulu, Hawaii
1905	MAIN-5: Canso, Nova Scotia - Waterville, Ireland - Weston super Mare, England
1906	Porthcurno, England - Fayal, Azores
1906	St Vincent Cape Verde Islands - Fayal, Azores
1907	Durban - Mozambique
1907	Coney Island, New York - Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
1907	Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - Colon, Panama
1907	Delagoa Bay - Moçambique diversions into Beira
1907	Quelimane T piece to Mozambique - Beira cable of 1879 and 1907
1908	Cadiz - Tenerife - Palma - Hierro - Gomera - Tenerife - Gran Canaria - Feurteventura - Lanzarote
1909	NY-1: St. John's, Newfoundland - New York
1910	Conception Bay, Newfoundland - Coney Island, New York (direct link for the second 1884 cable, which was diverted to Cuckold's Cove in 1905). It's likely this work was also done by Colonia, but at present there is no documented confirmation of this.
1910	WESTON-3: Waterville, Ireland - Weston super Mare, England
1910	St Vincent, Cape Verde Islands - Ascension
1910	Ascension - Buenos Aires
1910	Bay Roberts, Newfoundland - Sennen Cove, Cornwall, England
1910	St Vincent, Cape Verde Islands - Ascension
1912	Gibraltar - Malta
1912	Malta - Alexandria
1912	NY - 2: New York - St Johns, Newfoundland
1912	Gibraltar - Malta - Alexandria
1913	Aden - Colombo
1914	Freetown - Accra Suez - Aden
1915	Peterhead, Scotland - Alexandrovsk, Russia New York - Cuba - Panama
1919	Ascension - Rio de Janeiro
1920	Miami - Maranham - Barbados Miami - Barbados
1920	Atalya - Rio de Janeiro Montevideo - Santos
1921	Gibraltar - Malta Madras - Penang Key West - Havana (3 cables)
1922	Suez - Port Sudan - Aden Aden - Seychelles - Colombo Maceio - Rio de Janeiro Pernambuco - Maranham Santos - Rio de Janeiro
1923	Penang - Colombo Horta - Le Havre
1924	New York - Horta, Azores New York - Cuba - Panama Malaga - Horta, Azores Rio de Janeiro - Montevideo Montevideo - Buenos Aires (2 cables)
1925	Porthcurno - Bilbao
1926	Cocos (Keeling) Island - Cottesloe, Perth, Australia

CS Colonia at the Telcon Works, Greenwich, 1909
Image courtesy of Bill Holly

CABLE REPAIRS

Capt. H. Woodcock:
1907	Ste Tome - Ste Paul de Loanda repair to 1886 cable
1907	Durban - Delagoa Bay part renewal 1879 cable
1908	Aden - Zanzibar renewal of 1879 cable
1908	Aden - Bombay repairs to 1870, 1877, 1891 cables
1908	Valentia - Hearts Content renewal of 1880 cable
1909	Waterville - Canso diversion of 1884 cable to St. Johns, Newfoundland
1910	Waterville - St. Johns renewal of 1884 cables
1910	Sennen Cove - Canso
1910	Sennen Cove - Canso renewal of shore ends 1881 & 1882 cables

Last revised: 7 February, 2019

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