On Wednesday 1st May, 2024 the 2001 built 139.15 metres long cable layer RESPONDER called at Grand Harbour, Malta passing breakwaters at 1524 hrs bound to Palumbo Malta Shipyards.
She was built in Singapore by Keppel Shipyard Ltd at Benoi with yard no 5029 as the TYCO RESPONDER, the second ship in a class of 6 for Transoceanic Cable Ship Co LLC, USA.
Since March, 2010 her name was changed to RESPONDER and retaining her company with her homeport was always Majuro at Marshall Islands (MHL Flag)
She has 5 x Normo 9 Cylinder KRGB-9 Diesel Electric Engines giving her a cruising speed of 13.2 knots and amongst the equipment she carries there is the enormous Sea stallion cable plough that is dragged behind the ship when burying cable. This beast can bury cable up to 3 meters by dragging a plough section that cuts through the sea bottom as it pulls forward and the cable is fed in through the blade to the bottom of the trench. The plough needs to be precisely controlled and dragged at just the right speed to allow complete burial depending upon sea bottom topography. Considerable skill is required to maintain just the right tension on the plow and the communications cable feeding into it.
Since 1955, SubCom has deployed enough cable to circle the equator more than 21 times.
On Sunday 5th May at 1338 hrs she left Valletta from Parlatorio Wharf –
More images can be found here – https://maltashipphotos.com/photo/responder-01-05-2024/
