Page 10: of Marine Technology Magazine (January 2012)

case study ? cable laying 10MTRJanuary/February 2012 By Jack Shepherd, Macton Corporation Your company finishes a cable lay- ing job on the east coast and thenneeds to get the vessel to the west coast to start the next project. That means a lengthy voyage and lots of downtime, when the company isn't making any money. Fortunately, new technologies are about to change all that. Portable cable-laying turntables can be removed from the current ves- sel, disassembled and shipped to thenew location across the country. When the turntable arrives, it's easily reassembled on another vessel at the new location, and you're back in business, turning weeks of downtime into just days and lost profits into increased revenue. Underwater cable is manufactured in one of two ways. It is either laid in a stationary shipping basket or laid in a shipping basket placed on aturntable. If the cable is laid on a sta- tionary basket, there is a twist put in the cable with each wrap. When the cable is laid, it has to be dispensed inthe opposite rotation to take the twist out of the cable. If a turntable is used in the manufacture of undersea cable, then one must also be used when thecable is laid. Otherwise, there will be a twist imposed on the cable as it'sdispensed from the shipping basket. The cable manufacturer dictates the manufacturing process. Portable turntables arrive at a job site disassembled. The wheeled base assembly and the turntable itself are manufactured in pie sections that are bolted together on the vessel or barge. The wheeled base assemblies allow for rapid leveling of the base as a whole, as opposed to leveling each individual wheel set. The number and size of the supporting wheels is determined by the diameter and load capacity of theturntable. The design of the wheel Portable Turntables Provide Speed & Flexibility to Turn it Around Fast Cable being installed from turntable. MTR#1 (1-17):MTR Layouts 1/4/2012 2:02 PM Page 10