Netherland's TAT-14 Cable Landing Station Photos - Part 2
As mentioned in my first post, the TAT-14 subsea network suffered notorious outages, particularly on the Bude/Denmark segment where the cable hugged the Danish, Dutch and Belgium coasts and then traversed the English Channel's busy shipping lanes. About 85% of cable damage world wide occurs in waters one thousand meters deep or less. The two main culprits are fishing and ship anchors. Unfortunately, technology at the time permitted only shallow burial on the continental shelf off the Netherlands, Belgium, and through the English Channel. One meter was the max, but average burial much less, probably only 30 to 50 centimeters. This same region is known for sand waves, horizontal currents that can move several meters of sea floor deposit and disinter a buried cable. The design combined with shallow burial was a recipe for disaster. The consortium was certainly aware that their design was high risk, but every member wanted a landing and the consensus was that a ring mitigated the risk...