Subsea cable reminder to fishermen

January 18, 2018 at 9:31 am

A plea has been made to keep clear of a subsea communications cable east of Orkney, which is monitored in Faroe.

A reminder has been issued to fishing vessels who may be working in an area to the east of Orkney to please keep clear of an important subsea cable which comes ashore in South Ronaldsay.

The vital communications link runs from close to Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands to Shetland, and onwards to the Ayre of Cara in South Ronaldsay. It then runs between Manse Bay, South Ronaldsay, to Banff.

When the undersea cable was put in place in 2007, it was buried into the seabed. However, there were some areas where this was not possible, which had led to the issue of the cable occasionally being snagged by fishing boats.

Managing director of cable owner Faroese Telecom, Páll H. Vesturbú, said that he would like to remind fishermen of its presence.

He said: “It would be good if fishermen could take care and stay clear of the area of the SHEFA-2 cable, as it has caused some problems in the past, we would be very grateful if they could avoid the location.”

He also said that positions and route information of submarine cables in the seas around Orkney, as well as many other areas, can be found on the Kingfisher Information Service website www.kis-orca.eu