All about letting go

A repair vessel may have just deployed a bight of telecoms fibre optic cable or similar product – but it’s still attached to the crane. So, how does it retrieve what may be a 1,000m length of load-carrying rope? After all, leaving it there is environmentally unfriendly if not downright wasteful while using divers or ROVs doesn’t come cheap.

The DLM Bight load hook will release on an acoustic signal

A repair vessel may have just deployed a bight of telecoms fibre optic cable or similar product - but it’s still attached to the crane. So, how does it retrieve what may be a 1,000m length of load-carrying rope? After all, leaving it there is environmentally unfriendly if not downright wasteful while using divers or ROVs doesn’t come cheap.