Blue Ocean Projects Limited are working in conjunction with Ocean Cable Technologies Ltd and Alcatel Submarine Networks to develop a new deepwater cut and hold grapnel for submarine telecom cables.

The new grapnel is suitable for use on lightweight (LW) cable variants and is designed to operate to full oceanic water depths, typically 1000m to 8000m. The main objective of the development is to reduce the time required to undertake a deepwater cable repair.

At the heart of the grapnel is a new method for gripping lightweight cables, which has now been fully proven during land based trials.

The project has been described in more detail to date at papers and presentations at SubOptic 07 (Baltimore) and ICPC 08 (Reykjavik).