Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-10-12
NEW CABLE TO ALASKA
BY frederic j. Haskin

army cableship Dellwood will steam
out of Seattle harbor bound for Sit
ka. Over the ships stern a slender
thread of copper and steel and gutta
percha will slip silently into the sea
as she goes and the task of rebridg-
ing the 1000 miles with the cable
that binds Alaska to the nation will
have begun.
Already the wheels of a great cable
factory near London are whirring
in the making of the first spar of the
new Alaska cable. Long before the
Dellwood noses her way to the dock
at this factory in March, the cable
will be ready for that first 1000 mile
span of the 1900 mile cable-laying
job the ship will do next year Coiled
in gigantic tanks at the factory and
covered with water to protect it
from the air, it will be a single, I'M
broken strand 1000 miles long and
weighing more than 5000 tons. a
whole ships cargo in one piece.
From the factory tanks it will be
reeled aboard to be slowed again
in the five great 30-feet tanks that
fill the hold of the Dellwood and
again to be submerged in seawater
to prevent deterioration of the in
sulation through exposure to the
air.
There can be no carelessness in
handling this cargo. 1t must reach
its final destination, thousand
fathoms or more below the surface
of the sea, in absolutely perfect on
dition. The task must be done with
loo per cent precision. A single
flaw or break in all that thousand
miles Of insulation, though it be no
bigger than a pinhole penetrating
to the copper core, and the cable will
not function.
The Dellwood can carry only this
first thousand mile span of new
cable. When she reaches Seattle
from London with that cargo, the
shore end will be spliced to connec-
lions with the cable station and the
ship will put out at an eight-knot
gait for Sitka. Day and night the
ca BILE will so whirling ever the stern
and down into the depths below.
Day and night the officers and mon
of the signal corps will be lowering
ever the comp.icated mcchanisnis
that feed the costly strand to the
sea. Day and night they will watch
every weather indication with anx-
ious eyes in fear that storms will
interrupt their task and force them
To cut and buoy the cable. With fair
weather tia 1000 miles VII be laid
i'll less than u week.
Over the route wnere the new
caile vii: lie The souni;nss show
depths Of fion 1000 Ia 5000
fatfoms. Tia can that for much
of the time as she leans the DELL
W. cd VIII have q stretch of cable
circling down from her stern lore
than twenty-five miles in length be-
fore the seafloor takes its weight.
The point at which the great
of cable touches bottom will be
twenty-five miles astern and there
can be only the strength of the cable
itself to sustain that great delight.
1t is to meet this condition in lay
ing or perhaps again when it is nee
essary to grapple the cable and hoist
it to the surface for repairs, that
the armor strips of steel are bound
around it. The great copper ore
alone could not carry the weight. In
the present outworn cable to Alaska
l1OI Oll1y IDS t1C 1opD0I 4iicblcIIACh
been eaten away until there is con-
slant leakage of current, but the
armor protection is packing. Many
times the cable has broken when
the repair crew has hoisted it to
the surface. Once it broke seventeen
times, making days of graphing nee
essary before it vas lifted on deck.
That was one of the reasons for the
- 49, -. "a G o nm mn f. Lt..Y
and lay the new cable.
Graphing for a submarine cable
is fishing on a gigantic scale. When
a break is reported it is possible by
delicate instruments and complicat-
ed calculations at the shore stations
to compute the exact distance of
the repair ship goes out with that
information and with chart and
compass and careful navigation us
ually can hit within a few miles of
the right spot at first try. Then the
graphing hooks go over, trailing at
the end of a mile OF two of steel
wire cable. The ship goes ahead
at a speed Of a mile or two an hour.
Sometimes the hooks get fast to a
rock or a sunken wreck, and it is
necessary to try again. When the
SdOlC 10 AO0I1o lliO 0AllR blOPS dll0
maneuvers slowly back to lie direct
~ over it. The hosting machinery
heaves away, the indicator recording
the gradually increasing weight of
the span of cable. Then, suddenly
the indicator hand drops back to
zero. The watchers know that means
a break, that the cable has snapped
unable to bear the strain of its W
x4raJrht Thn1y UA Hoolr 10 Mod nunr
the route and do 1t all over again,
knowing that meanwhile folks up in
Alaska are clamoring for news and
the means of quick business COM
munication.
Fortunately. most cable interrupt
lions occur close to shore. Out in
deep water there is rarely any move
ment or chatting of the insulation
that leads to leakage and no ships
anchor can foul it.. With such a
cable as that to be laid to Alaska,
there should be very little trouble.
The gutta percha insulation has a
known life of more than fifty years.
Specimens of Atlantic cables sim
ilarly insulated have been examined
after more than half a century on
the bottom and there has been no
indication of deterioration.
Throughout the trip the Dellwcod
will be in cable communication with
the Seattle station. Sending and re-
ceiving instruments aboard the ship
will be in use to talk over the long
wire as it is reeled out.
The route of the present cable up