Cable laying vessel

A method for laying an underwater cable according to a prescribed cable route on a water body bottom between two offshore installations by means of a cable laying vessel,

• wherein the underwater cable has a prescribed minimal bending radius above which the structural integrity of the underwater cable is ensured, and
• wherein the cable laying vessel comprises a floating hull with a bow, a stern and a deck, and
• wherein the hull has a forward shipping direction,
• wherein the cable laying vessel comprises a cable handling installation that comprises a cable chute at the stern, and a cable quadrant and a quadrant manipulator for the cable quadrant on the deck,
• wherein the cable chute comprises a convex curved bottom wall with a bottom wall apex where the bottom wall faces furthest away from the stern,
• wherein the bottom wall continues as from the bottom wall apex downwards back towards the stern, and
• wherein the cable chute comprises a left outer guide wall and a right outer guide wall that extend under an angle with the bottom wall and that flare away from each other in a downward direction,
• wherein a cable overlength of the underwater cable is fed along the cable quadrant and forms a first cable leg and a second cable leg that both extend as from the cable quadrant through the cable chute,
• wherein the left outer guide wall, the bottom wall and the right outer guide wall define multiple cable trajectories for the abutting first cable leg and the abutting second cable leg,
• wherein the cable trajectories are fluently curved and have over the entire length a radius or a series of sections with radii that are larger than the prescribed minimal bending radius of the underwater cable,
• wherein the method comprises at the first offshore installation releasing a first end of the underwater cable from the deck via the cable chute and bringing the first end to the first offshore installation, maneuvering the cable laying vessel along the prescribed cable route while releasing the underwater cable from the deck via the cable chute wherein the underwater cable settles on the water body bottom on the prescribed cable route, maneuvering the cable laying vessel to a cable overboarding location between the first offshore installation and the second offshore installation, wherein the cable laying vessel is maneuvered with the hull under an overboarding angle with the normal to the tangent of the prescribed cable route at the cable overboarding location,
• wherein the overboarding angle is larger than 10 degrees, wherein the first leg or the second leg extends behind the cable chute in a vertical projection under the hull.