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The work described was conducted to assess the magnitude of the vertical forces required to recover deep-buried cables from the seabed for a range of depths cable diameters and soil conditions. Experimental work was carried out in a laboratory soil bin for (a) a peel-out condition and (b) a bight pull condition and further work was conducted in field conditions for a bight pull situation. A mathematical model was developed based on three-dimensional crescent soil failure to a critical depth together with lateral failure down to the burial depth to predict the forces. Further force components took account of cable soil friction, cable pre-tension and cable weight.

Good overall correlation between predicted and measured vertical forces was found for the laboratory peel-out and bight pull situations, with a mean difference ranging from 7.3% to 10.4%. The correlation for the field experiments was acceptable with a mean difference of 13.6%.