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The Rogue Wave
The rogue wave keeps surfacing in the marine
news. The latest view is that satellites have identified a pattern of rogue
waves in storms on the surface of the earth. Perhaps this scientific
discovery validates the numerous reports of rogue waves which have been
filed by shipmasters over the years. On the other hand it is surely to be
expected that some waves in storms will be larger than others, and it is not
unreasonable that there might be some sort of pattern.
Of course it is usually after ships have been
seriously damaged that the reports are filed. "We could hardly believe it,
the wave towered over us etc". In addition there have been ships lost in
extremely rough weather and some people claim that these losses have been
due to very large waves. Indeed the latest was the report by those guys in a
rowing boat. A giant wave swamped their boat - surely it would not take much
of a wave to swamp a rowing boat. The surprise is that they got as far as
they did.
Some of the other ship damage might just have
been due enthusiasm to press on despite the adverse conditions and some of
the losses might really have been due to lack of maintenance, poor design
and failure to carry out proper inspections on the part of the people who
are supposed to do that sort of work.
Or else maybe it really is true. There are
rogue waves, but no matter what they only happen when its already really
awful weather.
The Tidewater Retirements
Some time during the month Tidewater announced
that they were retiring 83 ships. Well, its probably about time. We are
constantly amazed by the life of some of these craft and the oil rigs which
they service, and much of this is probably due to the way steel is protected
now. Many of us could probably visit a 20 year old ship and find it in
wonderful condition, and if you suggested to the crew that it might be at
the end of its life they would be amazed. But, in the 1970s ships were still
being built with a ten year life. There were even programmes which suggested
that they would not be maintained at all - just thrown away at the end of
their expected life.
The Tidewater announcement probably heralds
the eventual demise of the the well known American 180 ft supply boat, a
ship type which has successfully serviced the offshore industry for 25
years. I commanded one for a brief period in Saudi Arabia in 1994 and
developed great admiration for the design, which was built on the principal
that if it couldn't be fixed with a big hammer then you had a major problem.
We worked without any major problems for 3 months in a place where support
was very limited, and developed a reputation for being the ideal ship for
rig moving. I for one will be sorry to see them go, particularly since the
American replacements seem to take the 1980s ME202 as their template. Photo
below by Ken Polson
The 10,000 Year Storm
Storms in general have made the news in UK recently because there have been
quite a lot of them. So how do these relate to the 10,000 year storm you may
ask. People not familiar with the designs of mobile offshore drilling units
may wonder what this is all about. Well, the average MODU is designed to
withstand the 100 year storm being suitably closed up and secured. What the
will happen when you have the 10,000 year storm ask the UK safety
regulators. If your rig is only designed to withstand the 100 year storm how
is it going to manage in the 10,000 year storm. The uninitiated might say
what the hell does it matter, and the answer is that it matters because of
the numbers. It is part of the required standards for the safety of people
offshore that their individual risk should be less than 1 x 10-3
. That is that you would have to work on a rig for 1000 years before you
were accidentally killed. If you put 100 people on the rig and they all have
the same chance of dying in the 10,000 year storm then the risks, in theory
become unacceptable.
By now you have probably dropped off, or if
you have not you may be wondering what the hell the point of this is. The
point is that in such a storm everyone, including people on oil rigs, are
going to have to rely on either themselves or else the emergency services.
In the recent UK storm at Boscastle, where most of the village was washed
away seven helicopters were used to rescue the population. If every town on
the North East coast of the UK was a Boscastle how many helicopters would be
left over to rescue people from oil rigs?
Safety Case Training
Occasionally I remember why we started this
website. It was intended to assist us in our efforts to sell our products
and services, but it has taken on a life of its own, and mostly I forget to
adverise our products when I should be doing so.
So - an advert. Over the last couple of years
we have been discussing the possibility of providing a course to familiarise
people with the UK Safety Case. Our possible collaborator thought we would
be ideal people to provide such a service because of our years of
experience, not to mention our ability to make presentations. The whole plan
fell by the wayside but we have kept on thinking about it and gradually
getting a programme together, and now we are ready.
MMASS will be holding a series of 1 day
courses starting in November of this year. Their purpose is just to
familiarise people with the whole process, so that when they look at a
Safety Case they will know what it is about . We intend to cover the reasons
for the case, what has to be included, how to do risk assessments, what QRA
is all about, the supporting legislation and how the HSE assess the
documents. Many people remain completely in the dark about Verification, we
demistify the process.
Anyone interested should give us a call on 00
44 1224 894498.
Full Employment
Interestingly the Stewarts daily ship report
on 24th August showed that every spot market vessel in Aberdeen, the
Southern North Sea and Norway were employed. Even the majority of the small
stuff which is based in the Dutch ports was also working some of them for
very good money moving jackups.
The Operators have had it all their own way
for a number of years now, and have been able to hire well found and in many
cases almost new ships for moderate prices for what-ever tasks they have in
mind. But once the availability of good ships is reduced and the prices for
hiring them start to rise there is usually a change in approach. In the past
anchor-handlers which had spent some time on the spot market might be hired
longer term, so that operators had a guarantees availability of vessels and
in the mean time they would be used for the carriage of cargo.
However, the AHTS specifications have been
rising constantly and a large number of the vessel operating from Aberdeen
have the capability to lay moorings in very deep water. This inevitably uses
deck space and it is likely that fuel consumption even in "economy" mode may
be quite high. So if one looks at this logically and operators do decide to
add anchor-handlers to their contract fleets then they should start with the
least powerful first. If true then we should see UT722s being added to the
operator's fleets.
The Stevns Power
It is now 8 months since the Stevns Power
capsized during anchor-handling operations off Nigeria with the loss of all
hands, and I was going to suggest that it is about time we saw the report,
but just to be certain I did a search on the internet, and found that the
Danish Maritime Authorities have in fact published their report.
Once more it makes sobering reading, and it is
likely that what most of us suspected turned out to be true. The report can
be accessed at http://soefart.inforce.dk
. I leave it to you to you to go and look, and those of you out there
driving anchor-handlers to learn the lessons.
Star Offshore Services
A little bit of a personal advert. I am
acquainted with many people in Aberdeen who used to work for Star Offshore,
and now and again when there are half a dozen of us in the same room we
think we should have some sort of a re-union. As a step towards this I have
registered "Star Offshore Services - Seagoing staff" on Friends Reunited.
If you worked for Star Offshore visit the site
and register, and we'll see where we go from there.
Vic Gibson
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