The ship keeping the continent connected

A ship of the size of a football field, manned by more than 50 engineers and technicians, navigates around the oceans around Africa to keep the continent online.

It provides a vital service, as demonstrated by the Internet blackout last year when the Internet cables buried in the depths of the sea were damaged.

Millions of lakes to Nairobi submerged in digital darkness: messaging applications were blocked and bank transactions failed. He left companies and individuals who fight.

It was Léon Thévenin who set the multiple cable failures. The ship, where a BBC team recently spent a week aboard the coast of Ghana, has been doing this specialized repair work during the last 13 years.

“Due to me, the countries remain connected,” says Shuru Arendse, a South Africa cable meet that has been working on the ship for more than a decade, the BBC.

“People at home have work because I bring the main food,” he says.

“You have heroes that save lives, I am a hero because I keep communication.”

His pride and passion reflect the feeling of the expert crew in the Léon Thévenin, which has eight floors and has a variety of equipment.

Internet is a network of computer servers: to read this article, it is likely that at least one of the 600 fiber optic cables worldwide collects the data to present it on its screen.

Most of these servers are in out of Africa data and fiber optic cables run along the background of the ocean that unites them to the coastal cities of the continent.

The data travel through thin fiberglass cables, often grouped in pairs and protected by different layers of plastic and copper, depending on how close the cables are on the edge.

“As long as the servers are not in the country, you need a connection. A cable extends from one country to another, linking users with the servers that store their data, whether they access Facebook or any other online service,” says Benjamin Smith, head of the deputy mission of Léon Thévenin.

Submarine fiber optic cables are designed to operate for 25 years with minimum maintenance, but when they are damaged, it is usually due to human activity.

“The cable usually does not break on its own unless it is in an area where there are quite high currents and very sharp rocks,” says Charles Heald, who is in charge of the vehicle operated at a distance of the ship (Rov).

“But most of the time, the people who anchor where they should not and the fishing drags sometimes scratch along the bottom of the sea, so we would generally see scratch scars.”

Smith also says that natural disasters cause damage to cables, especially in parts of the continent with extreme climatic conditions. It gives an example of the seas against the coast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the Congo River is emptied in the Atlantic.

“In the Congo Canyon, where they have a lot of rain and low tide, I could create currents that damage the cable,” he says.

Deliberate sabotage is difficult to identify, but Léon Thévenin’s team says that they did not see any obvious evidence of this.

A year ago, three critical cables in the Red Sea – Secom, AAE -1 and EIG – They were cut, according to the reports by the anchor of a shipInterrupting connectivity for millions in eastern Africa, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Mozambique.

Only a month later, in March 2024, a separate set of breaks in the Wacs, ACE, SAT-3 and Mainone cables on the western African coast caused severe internet blackouts Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory and Liberia coast.

Anything that required the Internet to work felt the tension as repairs extended for weeks.

Then, in May, another setback: the Seacom and Eassy cables suffered damage to the coast of South Africa, hitting connectivity in multiple nations of East Africa once again.

These failures are detected by testing the electricity and intensity of the signal transmitted through the cables.

“There may be 3,000 volts in a cable and suddenly falls to 50 volts, this means that there is a problem,” explains Loic Wallerand, head of the ship’s mission.

There are local equipment with the ability to deal with failures in shallow waters, but if they are detected beyond a depth of 50 m (164 feet), the ship is called the action. Your crew can set deeper 5,000 m below sea level.

The repair witnessed by the BBC Off Ghana took a week to treat, but most Internet users did not realize that traffic was redirected to another cable.

The nature of each repair depends on the part of the cable that is damaged.

If the fiberglass in the nucleus is broken, it means that the data cannot travel along the network and should be sent to another cable.

But some African countries only have a cable that serves them. This means that a damaged cable in this way leaves the affected area without the Internet.

On other occasions, fiber protective layers could be damaged, which means that data transmission is still produced, but with lower efficiency. In both cases, the crew must find the exact location of the damage.

In the case of broken glass fiberglass, a light signal is sent through the cable and through its reflection point, the crew can determine where the rupture is.

When the problem is with the isolation of the cable, known as “derivation failure”, it becomes more complicated and an electrical signal should be sent along the cable to physically track where it is lost.

After reducing the possible area for the failure, the operation moves to the Rov team.

Built as an excavator, the ROV, which weighs 9.5 tons, is low under the water of the ship, where it is guided to the bottom of the ocean.

Some five crew members work with a crane operator to deploy it, once it is released from the harness, called umbilical cord, it floats with grace.

“It does not sink,” says Heald, explaining how he uses four horizontal and vertical propellers to move in any direction.

The three Rov cameras allow the on -board team to look for the precise location of the failures as it moves towards the ocean bed.

Once found, the ROV cuts the affected part using its two arms, then links it to a rope that crawls back to the ship.

Here the defective section is isolated and replaced by joint and joining it to a new cable, a process that seems welding and took 24 hours in the case of the operation witnessed by the BBC.

Then, the cable got off carefully back to the ocean bed and then the ROV made a final trip to inspect that it was well placed and take coordinates so that the maps could be updated.

When an alert is received on a damaged cable, Léon Thévenin’s equipment is ready to navigate in 24 hours. However, your response time depends on several factors: the location of the ship, the availability of spare cables and bureaucratic challenges.

“Permits can take weeks. Sometimes we sail the affected country and wait on the coast until the paperwork is ordered,” says Wallerand.

On average, the crew passes more than six months at sea every year.

“It’s part of work,” says Captain Thomas Quehec.

But speaking with the members of the crew between tasks, it is difficult to ignore their personal sacrifices.

They are extracted from different origins and nationalities: French, South African, Filipino, Malgache and more.

Adrian Morgan, the main administrator of the South Africa ship, has lost five consecutive wedding anniversaries.

“I wanted to quit smoking. It was difficult to stay away from my family, but my wife encouraged me. I do it for them,” he says.

Another South African maintenance adjuster Noel Goeieman, is worried that he can lose his son’s wedding in a few weeks if the ship is called to another mission.

“I have heard that we could go to Durban (in South Africa). My son will be very sad because he has no mother,” says Mr. Goeieman, who lost his wife three years ago.

“But I retire in six months,” he adds with a smile.

Despite the emotional cost, there is camaraderie on board.

When it is out of service, crew members are playing video games in the living room or sharing meals in the ship’s dining room.

His entry to the profession is as diverse as his background.

While Mr. Goeieman followed in the footsteps of his father, the chief chef, the South African remar reminds Smith, went to the sea to escape a crime life.

“I was involved in gangs when I was younger,” says Smith, “my son was born when I turned 25, and I knew I had to change my life.”

Like the others on board, it appreciates the role that the ship plays in the continent.

“We are the link between Africa and the world,” says Chief Engineer Ferron Hartzenberg.

Additional Jess Auerbach Jajaeah reports.