WHERE IN THE WORLD ARE THOSE PESKY CABLESHIPS? BY REBECCA SPENCE
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ongratulations to all the crew and team members who were able to celebrate the completion of Southern Cross NEXT wet plant at the beginning of May! It has been a long road and Provisional Acceptance has finally arrived! The final branching unit and final splices were accomplished by the Ile de Sein and Ile de Re over the last couple months, which accounts for a large majority of the tracking data coming from the South Pacific since March. The Rene Descartes also accounted for activity in the South Pacific as it worked to install Picot 2 in New Caledonia. Several regions saw a decrease in activity since March as Activity
Figure 1: Rene Descartes landing Picot 2 in New Caledonia
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SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE
in the Americas increased to 21 percent from 16 percent. EMEA decreased from 46 percent to 43 percent, AustralAsia fell from 27 percent to 18, and the Transpacific decreased from 10 percent to 7 percent. The wet plants of 2Africa (also known as SHARP by Vodafone), Equiano, and Peace have kept the EMEA region bustling with activity. With the exception of Equiano which seems to be about halfway through wet plant based on the number of landings it has completed, several systems will continue to announce landings around the continent and continue the trend seen with Africa as a focal point of subsea cable installation activity over the coming months. Another congratulations is due to Global Marine who received a Platinum level award by the UK Met office. According to their announcement in Early April, the award for their submarine cable installation vessel the Cable Retriev-
