The Massive Sea Plow

Hinzugefügt: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Now, this steel plow, which looks like a robot, can weigh between 20 and 30 tons.

[00:00:05]That's almost the weight of a fully grown humpback whale. After it's been lowered from the ship to the seabed, the ship begins towing it with a steel rope, similar to how a tractor pulls a plow on land. As the plow moves, the support structures, called skids, are adjusted to lower the plow further into the seabed to create a trench. A groove underneath the plow known as the cable guide then carefully places the cable inside the trench. Hydraulic arms control the skid's position, allowing them to adjust how deep the cables buried. Now, the plows connected to the ship via an umbilical wire that transmits power and control signals.

[00:00:45]Since an extensive network of fiber optic connections already exists on the seabed, newly laid cables often need to cross over the old ones. Now, at these points, the plow must stop 500 m before reaching the pre-existing cable to prevent damage. Then, the ship slowly moves backward, rewinding the extra length. Once the ship reaches the plow's position, it's lifted 10 to 20 m above the seabed. The ship then resumes forward motion, continuing to lay the cable on the seabed without burying the old one. Now during this phase the plow moves forward in a lifted position suspended in the water without touching the seabed. When the ship reaches a point 500 m beyond the crossing cable the plow is lowered back onto the seabed to be able to resume the burial process.

[00:01:33]This means there's a 1 km section of cable left unburied.