CABLE VIGILANCE

General information

Course/Position

Latest news

Cable Vigilance allided with tail section of the Kiel Canal locks

On March 8, 2025, the 'Cable Vigilance', en route from Calais, allided with the tail section of the Kiel Canal locks in Kiel-Holtenau, which had only just been repaired in February, in front of the south chamber of the large locks, destroying several wooden floating fenders. When entering the south chamber of the lock, there was a coordination error on the bridge. The control console with the systems for operating the rudders and propellers in the bridge wing was not switched on due to a human error. The captain had used the middle console on the bridge while sailing in the canal, from where he has a central view of the course. However, the console in the bridge wing should have been used to enter the lock, from where the captain has a better view of the side of the ship and the mooring lines. The captain had probably forgotten to make the corresponding switch on the central console. The workers from the Kiel Canal Waterways and Shipping Authority were able to inspect the damage on March 10, when they started work. The "Cable Vigilance" had damaged several floating fenders. The impact was so violent that fenders broke through, splintered and became wedged under water. The wreckage had to be recovered. The "Cable Vigilance" was able to continue its voyage at around 9 p.m. after the crew was questioned by the Kiel water police. The ship is tasked with repairing severed communication cables in the Baltic Sea. It arrived off Gotland on March 10 at 10 a.m. and started working in pos. 57° 45' N 019° 38' E. This is the third deployment of the French special ship in the Baltic Sea since the end of November. Report with photo: https://www.kn-online.de/lokales/kiel/haverie-am-nord-ostsee-kanal-in-kiel-holtenau-schleuse-betroffen-NQF5U3VBCRHV7P33L7FBXIPBMA.html?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm

Cable ship started repairs of damaged submarine cable between Rostock and Helsinki

The 'Cable Viligance' started repairs of the damaged data cable between Rostock and Helsinki,on the morning of Nov 25, 2024, in in the Baltic Sea southeast of the island of Öland. Meanwhile, the suspected freighter "Yi Peng 3" was still anchored in the Kattegat - guarded by several coast guard and naval ships. The "Cable Vigilance" arrived at the site en route from Calais, the Finnish operating company Cinia announced. Cinia assumed that - weather permitting - the repairs could be completed by the end of the week. Since the defect a week ago, communication links via the C-Lion 1 cable between Germany and Finland have been interrupted. Several countries are investigating suspected sabotage.

Submarine cables severed, sabotage assumed

The C-Lion1 submarine cable between Finland and Germany was cut in the early hours of Nov 18, 2024. This was announced by the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency (Liikenne- ja viestintävirasto, Traficom). The president and CEO of the operator Cinia Group, Ari-Jussi Knaapila, stated that such damage does not occur without external influences,. To determine the cause, a repair ship must be on site. The departure of the 'Cable Vigilance' of the OMS Group Sdn is already being prepared in Calais. Such cable repairs usually take between five and 15 days. The German data center operator Hetzner Online has connected its data center park in Finland via the C-Lion1 and is a co-investor in the submarine cable project. The Sea Lion cable, which consists of eight pairs of fiber optic cables, was manufactured by the Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks (ASN) in Calais. The cable is 1,170 kilometers long and weighs 3,355 tons. It was delivered in Finland by the cable-laying ship 'Ile de Brehat'. The laying of the Cinia-C-Lion1 submarine cable began on Oct 12, 2015 in Helsinki and was successfully completed after three months when it reached its destination in Rostock. On Nov 18 at around 10 a.m. LT, the 218-kilometer-long BCS East-West submarine cable between Sventoji in Lithuania and the Swedish island of Gotland also failed, according to the Lithuanian landline and mobile operator Telia Lietuva, which belongs to the Swedish Telia Company. The country is connected to the Internet via three cables from Telia Lietuva. This limits the transmission capacity. The damaged cable is quite old and there have already been several disruptions. However, no cases of sabotage have been registered so far. The operator of the BCS East-West is the Swedish company Arelion, a Tier 1 network provider. This case is serious because the cables cross between Lithuania and Sweden and between Germany and Finland n an area of ​​just 10 square meters. Since both have been damaged, it is clear that this was not an accidental setting of a ship's anchor, but that something more serious could be going on. The German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius assumed it was sabotage and obvious that it was a hybrid action, before consultations of the EU defense ministers. He does not assume that the fiber optic cables were accidentally damaged by dropped anchors. Rather, it is "a clear sign that something is going on here."