Clean living with Slick Willie

Kelso Riddell of Umbilicals International (UI) says that it isn’t just a question of dealing with the difficulties of one environment, it is also the cross contamination into another that poses risks. ‘Problems can arise because you may find yourself in an environment you need to keep particularly clean on the day after you have been working alongside sewage’, he explained.

Spiralled (cabled) umbilical construction has the edge over a straight taped sheathing in that a cabled umbilical follows a helical path around its neighbours. This allows much more flexibility in its structure, which in turn means that components inside the umbilical are allowed to realign when moved, minimizing the stresses induced by bending. The tensile strength of the umbilical is evenly distributed, leading to a longer life and less maintenance.

Cabled umbilicals are also inherently safer to use because the ease of bending minimises the possibility of dangerous loops developing that can become entangled on underwater structures and obstructions. However, it (literally) lays itself open to picking up whatever the environment offers.

So, something was needed to advance this construction enough to deal with the cracks and crevices that pick up dirt, and more, in contaminated water. This has been answered by the new ‘Slick Willie’ version of cabling by UI.

This version of the covering is a standard cable bundle with an extruded polyurethene jacket, a technological development that gives a smooth covering to the cable while overcoming the twin difficulties of the lack of uniformity in cross section and the need to retain flexibility. This jacket gives the cable a completely smooth outer surface. The end of the umbilical can be sealed with a glue lined, heat shrink, break-out cover, so that the whole assembly can be washed down after a dive simply and quickly as there are no crevices for ‘nasties’ to lurk in.

Mr Riddell told MJ that the cabling has a wide array of applications, as well as mitigating some of the cleaning difficulties that arise from working on WWII salvage vessels, which are often covered in thick oil. ‘It is a little more expensive, he says, ‘but worth it because the new covered umbilicals can be verified as clean, unlike the older structures, and prolonged maintenance times mean both effort and money.’