Posted on July 29, 2024
He was a brilliant physicist, played a crucial role in the success of the transatlantic telegraph cable, helped lay the foundations of electromagnetic theory and was a great enthusiast of sea travel. William Thomson paved the way for the modern offshore cable industry. It is therefore fitting that our newest cable-laying vessel will be named after this scientific genius.
William Thomson will be the name of the new cable-laying vessel we ordered earlier this year. The vessel will be an identical copy of our previously ordered Fleeming Jenkin. With their three carousels and cable-carrying capacity of 28,000 tonnes, the sister vessels will be the largest cable-laying vessels in the world. This scale-up is needed to successfully realise the global transition to renewable energy.
The vessels will certainly be innovative for the offshore cable industry, as so was physicist William Thomson. His name could therefore not be more appropriate for our second XL cable-laying vessel, for several reasons.
Who was William Thomson?
William Thomson (1824 – 1907), later also known as Lord Kelvin, was born in 1824 in Belfast, Ireland. With a father as a mathematics professor, his passion for science was instilled in him at an early age.
Thomson has an impressive array of scientific theories and inventions to his name. He had a strong interest in thermodynamics, and his theories were fundamental to the concept of absolute temperature, better known as the Kelvin scale. However, his primary focus was on the study of electricity. Thomson’s ideas helped to establish the relationship between light, magnetism, and electricity.
William Thomson’s most famous achievement is the success of the transatlantic telegraph cable. This cable, which connects Europe with North America across the Atlantic Ocean, was successfully installed in 1866. Through this connection, Europe and America could communicate via Morse code within minutes. It was largely due to Thomson’s galvanometer, which measures the strength of electric current, that this connection became a reality after several failed attempts.
William Thomson and Fleeming Jenkin meet again
As the names of our sister vessels, we will often mention William Thomson and Fleeming Jenkin together. However, their connection dates back to the past. Both scientists knew each other well, largely due to their shared interest in electrical engineering and submarine telegraphy. They exchanged ideas, collaborated on various projects, and influenced each other’s work. Besides Thomson, Jenkin also worked on the transatlantic telegraph cable. By naming our new cable-laying vessel after William Thomson, we are once again bringing these two scientists together to create connections for the future.
XL cable-laying vessel to accelerate the energy transition
With the cable-laying vessels Fleeming Jenkin and William Thomson, we are further strengthening our pioneering role in the transition to renewable energy. Thanks to their cutting-edge technology, both vessels can lay cables in shallow and ultra-deep waters up to 3,000 metres. With their unrivalled cable-carrying capacity of 28,000 tonnes, they can also lay cables over longer distances with fewer subsea connections. In turn, the three carousels allow HVDC cables to be installed bundled in one go.
All this puts Feeming Jenkin and William Thomson in a perfect position to connect countries and continents with high energy production with those that have high energy needs. This will allow maximum exchange and thus utilisation of green power, an important step in the global energy transition. The significant contributions of scientists Jenkin and Thomson to the submarine cable link between the US and Europe in the 19th century are therefore a nice nod to the future mission of our eponymous sister vessels.
