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The film opens with shots from 12 August 1944 showing the first Pluto (Pipe Lines Under the Ocean) being test laid from the Isle of Wight. We then see views of a conventional flexible pipeline being laid at sea. The film then goes into detail about the development of the Hamel (name derived from the engineers H.A. Hammick and B.J. Ellis) flexible steel pipeline that was developed by Stewarts and Lloyds of Corby as an improved version of the submarine fuelling cable. We see an industrial steam locomotive being used to test a mock up rotating drum that is used to wind the steel pipeline, experiments with a model to identify the effect of water on the winding of a cable drum, and a tank crossing a temporary steel tube bridge that uses the same type of steel. At the Stewarts and Lloyds plant in Corby we see the manufacture of steel tubing from bar. This is followed by scenes at Tilbury Docks where the tubes are welded into the correct lengths running for three quarters of a mile before finally being electric welded into a single length that is wound onto a drum (called the Conundrum). The final drum weighing 1,600 tons is towed by a ship and unwound at sea making the pipeline. There are also views of materials testing taking place at Corby, the Royal Engineers connecting the pipeline in France and views of the UK pumping station.
Directed by John Miller for Ace Distributors