The submarine-cable plow

A METHOD of protection of submarine cables by placement “underground” was described during the process of its development in an article written for Electrical Engineering in May 1938. The work then projected has since been successfully carried out, and the first cables scheduled to be plowed under, to protect them from being fouled by fishing gear dragged along the ocean bottom by steam trawlers, have been laid and buried in trenches to a depth of from half a foot to approximately two feet. In the latest operations, sections of cable 25 nautical miles (of 6,087 feet) in length have been dropped into a continuous furrow cut in the ocean bottom, from 500 to 2,700 feet below the surface of the sea. It is the purpose of this paper to describe the engineering features of the entrenching operation, and in a companion paper² will be found a description of a device, the submarine-cable depthometer, by which is measured the depth, in inches below the ocean bottom surface, at which the plowed-in cable actually lies in its trench.