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Wave Hub cable comes ashore

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Engineers working on the Wave Hub marine energy project have brought the end of the subsea cable ashore at Hayle on the north coast of Cornwall.

The operation involved the use of more than 400 buoys to float a 1,800m stretch of cable weighing around 90 tonnes. The end of the cable was pulled to the top of the beach at around 0500 on Monday where it will be joined to onshore cables linked to a new electricity sub-station.

The operation had been delayed by technical issues when the cable lost buoyancy on two previous attempts. Cable laying contractor CTC Marine devised a different method, using a combination of pillow floats and buoys.

The operation restarted on Sunday following modifications to the cable laying ship Nordica at the A&P Falmouth shipyard on the south coast of Cornwall.

Guy Lavender, the South West Regional Development Agency’s (RDA’s) Wave Hub general manager, said: ’The next steps involve burying the cable on the beach and connecting it to the onshore cabling already in place, while the Nordica starts heading for the Wave Hub site offshore, laying the rest of the cable as she goes.’

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