History of the Atlantic Cable & Submarine Telegraphy

	History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network
CS Vercors by Bill Glover

CS VERCORS

Built 1975 by Societe Nouvelle des Ateliers et Chantiers du Havre.

Length 433.0' Breadth 59.4' Depth 24.0' Gross tonnage 5886.

CS Vercors at Calais

At launch the vessel became the main cable laying ship, based at La Seyne sur Mer. Fitted with three cable tanks with a capacity of 1330 nm or 3200 tonnes of lightweight cable, storage for 136 repeaters is also provided. Both forward and aft paying out gear was fitted, built by the shipbuilders.

CS Vercors at Southampton
Image courtesy of David Watson

Renamed Chamarel and transferred to the France Telecom Marine subsidiary Chamarel Marine Services. Based at Cape Town for maintenance work on SAT 3, WASC and SAFE cables.

CS Chamarel (formerly CS Vercors).
The old name can still be seen.
Image courtesy of Bob Shackleton

CABLE WORK

1975	St Raphael - La Foux
1975	ANNIBAL France - Tunisia
1976	UK - France Two separate cables laid on this route
1976	TAT 6 French & American shore ends
1976	MARPAL France - Italy
1977	AMITIE France - Tetuan
1977	ANTINEA Morocco - Senegal - Ivory Coast
1977	Corsica - Marseilles
1978	England - France
1978	Morocco - France
1980	Greece - Syria
1981	ARTEMIS France - Greece No 2
1981	ATLANTIS Portugal - Senegal
1982	TAT 7 USA - UK
1982	Portugal - Morocco
1982	TAT 7 USA - UK
1983	Denmark - Holland
1983	MERIDIEN Belgium - Spain
1983	DIDON France - Tunisia
1984	Surveyed route for SEA ME WE Suez - Colombo
1984	MESING Indonesia - Singapore
1984	France - Morocco
1984-5	SEA ME WE 1
1986	France - Corsica No 3
1988	TAT 8 USA - UK - France
1989	HAW 4 Hawaii - USA
1989	PENCAN 4 Spain - Canary Islands
1989	Italy coastal cables
1990	Spain - Melilla
1991	EMOS 1 Italy - Turkey - Israel
1991	Italy - Spain
1992	TASMAN 2 Australia - New Zealand
1992	TAT 9 USA - Canada - UK - France - Spain
1992	EURAFRICA France - Portugal - Morocco - Madeira
1993	PACRIMEAST Hawaii - New Zealand
1994	SEA ME WE 2
1994	COLUMBUS 2 Italy - Madeira - Canary Islands - USA - Mexico
1994	Spain - Morocco
1995	TAT 12 USA - UK
1995	TAT 13 USA - UK - France
1995	SEA ME WE 3
1995	ARIANE 2 France - Greece
1996	ITUR Italy - Turkey - Ukraine
1996	KAFOS Turkey – Bulgaria
1996	BUGIO: Sesimbra - Carcavelos, Portugal
1996	TAGIDE 2: France - Portugal
1996	Novorossiysk - Sochi, Russia
1997	ALETAR: Egypt - Syria
1997	BERYTAR: Syria - Lebanon
1999	SEA ME WE 3
2000	SOUTHERN CROSS: Australia - USA
2001	HIBERNIA: UK - Ireland - Canada - USA
2001	TAT 14: USA - Denmark - Germany - France - UK – USA
2001	EAST ASIA CROSSING: Hong Kong - Taiwan - Korea - Japan
2002	SAFE: South Africa - Reunion - Mauritius - India - Malaysia

Three CS Vercors postcards
Images courtesy of David Watson

Last revised: 11 May, 2007

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Research Material Needed

The Atlantic Cable website is non-commercial, and its mission is to make available on line as much information as possible.

You can help - if you have cable material, old or new, please contact me. Cable samples, instruments, documents, brochures, souvenir books, photographs, family stories, all are valuable to researchers and historians.

If you have any cable-related items that you could photograph, copy, scan, loan, or sell, please email me: billb@ftldesign.com