Hydraulic Trenching of Submarine Pipeline

Abstract

A consortium of oil companies commissioned two firms of contractors to construct, as a joint venture, a single buoy mooring system off the South African coast. It was planned to pull the pipes out to the sea through a sleeve to be placed in a trench blasted 600-ft rocky reef in the surf zone, and to bury the pipe on the seaward side of the reed between chainages 1,705 and 8,000. The note describes the design of trenching device, the hydraulic trials, and the operation.