Sweden Seizes Suspect Ship
We talked about the underseas cables being cut to various Baltic allies, and mentioned the most recent, which was a partially severed cable between Fotland, Sweden, and Latvia.
Swedish authorities have seized the Malta-flagged Vezhen, and have it anchored off the post of Karsrona.
The Swedish Coast Guard confirmed to the newspaper Expressen that they were on site near the vessel which the paper identified as the Malta-flagged Vezhen, at anchor near the port of Karlskrona.
“We are directly on site with the seized ship and are taking measures as decided by the prosecutor,” said Mattias Lindholm, spokesperson for the Coast Guard.
According to data from Vesselfinder, the vessel departed from the Russian port of Ust-Luga several days earlier and was navigating between Gotland and Latvia at the time the damage was suspected of having occurred. AP News
If you look at the picture above, you can see that the visible port side anchor is damaged.
However, on Monday, Bulgarian shipping company Navigation Maritime Bulgare, which listed the Vezhen among its fleet, said one of the ship’s anchors dropped to sea floor in high winds and that there was no malicious intent. BBC
Other reports say that the winds were actually 8 to 10 meters per second. Gale force winds start at 14 mps, and an online convertor says 10 mps is about 22 miles per hour. In Texas that’s a decent breeze, not a catastrophic storm, but I’ll leave it to our nautical friends to authoritatively comment.
Earlier this month, NATO began a new mission dubbed “Baltic Sentry” which included frigates, maritime patrol aircraft and a fleet of naval drones to provide “enhanced surveillance and deterrence” in the Baltic Sea which the transatlantic alliance says is to protect undersea cables and pipelines.
Best of luck with that.
Category: Russia
Soooo…..the undersea cable being as deep as it is, when it’s damaged, how is repaired?
I’d think that it’s sooo deep that not even special divers would be able to reach it. Lifting it? Can’t see that either. Possibly a modern version of a diving bell?
If any of you swabbies know, please educate this ground pounding comms pogue.
Divers are not normally used to work on cut cables under water.
Normally a cable ship will pull the broken ends out of the water and splice them together on the vessel. This is a lot more involved than it sounds because you have to remember that there won’t be any free play in the cable and they are often in shipping lanes.
Some friends of mine spent time on the cable layers not that many years ago. They said it was the most exhausting work they ever did. I’ve never gotten on one but for the reasons you said alone it’s tough work for the bridge team and long hours for the guys working the spools/repair shops down below.
Ummmm. …yeah. I can see that being a LOT of work. Especially when the broken cable is lifted, all the weight is at the broken portion, it’s at the peak of a huge, heavy inverted “V”.
And too many things could go wrong, too easily.
Splicing cable of that size is a cast-iron bitch even on land. It’s a wee bit more involved than just twisting some wires together.
Can you say…”section cut”?…I knew you could. C’mon, man! A few Scotch-Loc (bennie buttons?) Connectors, a long enough piece of cable, some wire dogs wanting to make serious bank on over time? Easy/peasy. BTDT…just not underwater.
For some reason I can’t see this being an “accident”.
We had a plumbing contractor that was placing the water lines into the new county jail used a track hoe to pull what they thought was an abandoned rail road tie out of the ground. It was actually a wooden conduit that housed a 4800 pair copper cable (pulp insulated/non color coded, lead encased been in use since 1927). Ooops! (Pay no attention to that orange paint on the sidewalk) Totally destroyed the man holes, on both ends, the conduit, and 565′ of primary intra office/inter state trunk line, PLUS the sidewalk. Dood barely missed the redundant lines we had that ran Robins AFB and the FAA Towers @ the airport. Twenty eight (28) techs working around the clock (12 hour shifts) for thirteen (13) days to fix that cluster. Poor little Gun Bunny was stuck in the climate controlled Central Office moving the tone generator from each block of 25 pair groups over a 4th of July weekend (call out, holiday and night differential/ double to triple time pay tad bit over $107 an hour). Bless his heart. IIRC the total bill presented to the plumbing contractor was north of $1.2 million.
A 20 knot wind would imply Sea State 5, well within the safe cruising capabilities of that vessel. It is possible that there were other factors involved but unlikely.
“Other factors…”
Such as…. “Ve haff orders to disrupt cable und communications…”
Everyone hates the Field Wireman until they need the Field Wireman. Give him a Gerber, a roll of electrical tape, tell him to hold his breath, and launch him overboard.
Hey! I resemble that remark!
LINEMAN’S TOOL KIT, NSN 5180-00-408-1858
Not the ships fault. They purchased their navigation software from a proud but humble woman owned business formerly located on Wilson Lane in Bethesda Maryland.
Sweden Seizes Suspect Ship….Suspiciously Sailing Swelling Seas!
Say that five times fast….
“one of the ship’s anchors dropped to sea floor in high winds”
What, no safety chain like on a snow plow?
So a multi ton anchor and multi ton chain are affected by moderate breezes. Tell me another one pinochio.
Since the subject of Signal types has been broached, may I present Hollywood’s latest military related movie. Some of you dickweeds may recognize the patch, many of us wore it.
Looks like it might be worth watching.
The guilty party sounds like a five year old caught foraging in a candy dish!