Route Selection and Cable Laying for the 

 Transatlantic Cable System 



By J. S. JACK*, CAPT. W. H. LEECHf and H. A. LEWISJ 



(Manuscript received September 7, 1956) 



The repeatered submarine cables which form the backbone of the trans- 

 atlantic telephone cable project were installed during the good iveather 

 periods of 1955 and 1956. This paper considers the factors entering into 

 the selection of the routes, describes the planning and execution of the laying 

 task and presents a few observations on the human side of the venture. It also 

 covers briefly the routing of some 55 nautical miles of repeatered submarine 

 type cable which were trenched in across the neck of the Burin Peninsida 

 in Newfoundland to connect the Terrenceville submarine terminus with 

 the cable station at Clarenville. 



GENERAL 



In the days of Cyrus Field, Lord Kelvin and those other foresighted 

 and courageous entrepreneurs of the early transoceanic submarine 

 cable era, the risks involved in selecting a route and laying such a 

 cable must have appeared formidable beyond description. And indeed 

 they were, for not until the third attempt was a cable successfully laid. 



Today the hazards may be somewhat more predictable, our knowl- 

 edge of the ocean bottom more refined and our tools improved, but only 

 to a degree. The task still remains extremely exacting in its demands for 

 sound engineering judgment, careful preparation, high grade seaman- 

 ship, and good luck — weatherwise. For the basic methods now in use 

 are still remarkably like those employed on Great Eastern and other 

 early cable ships and the meteorological, geographical and topographi- 

 cal problems have changed not at all. 



In the current transatlantic project — the first transoceanic telephone 

 cable system — there are two submarine links. Between Clarenville in 

 Newfoundland, and Oban in Scotland there lie some 1,850 nautical 

 miles§ of North Atlantic water, most of it deep and all of it subject to 



* American Telephone and Telegraph Company, f British Post Office. } Bell 

 Telephone Laboratories. 



§ A nautical mile, as used herein, is 6,087 feet, 15.3 per cent longer than a stat- 

 ute mile. 



293 



