11/3/21 – The Marine division of Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) announced that it recently acquired two vessels—the Ile de Molène and the Ile d’Yeu—as part of its strategy to modernize and expand installation capacities for the growing submarine telecommunications market.

A press release said that the two vessels joined the ASN fleet respectively on May 7, 2021, for the Ile de Molène and on June 17, 2021, for the Ile d’Yeu. Both vessels will now go through a heavy engineering and upgrade program. The Ile de Molène will be assigned to the maintenance of customer telecommunications cables in the Atlantic and North Sea. The vessel is expected to start operating in the first half of 2022. Ile d’Yeu will join the installation fleet at the end of 2022, and be installed with transoceanic telecom systems. The vessels specifications are as follows: the Ile d’Yeu is 147 m long, and has 4,375 net tonnage and 13,520 gross tonnage. The Ile de Molène is 98 m long, and has 2,080 net tonnage and 5,729 gross tonnage.