NEWS AND VIEWS DECEMBER 2007 

ADVERTISING IN ABERDEEN AIRPORT

Very recently I passed through Aberdeen airport, which is now decorated with a very large sign in the approach for the departures area. It is placed alongside the queue for security, which can sometimes almost stretch out of the front door. It says something like "Welcome to Aberdeen" and the words are alongside a Saltire (for those reading this on the other side of the planet, the Scottish flag). On either side there are two photographs. On the right there is a picture of the Cromarty Firth full of laid up semi-submersibles, and on the other side there is a picture of a small vessel at an offshore installation.

Anyone who is aware of the current situation will know that there are now no semi-submersibles in the Cromarty Firth. The oil price has made sure of that, but never-the-less is is a good picture. When I looked at the other picture I wondered what the ship could be doing. There was what looked like a trapeze hanging from the crane, and the ship seemed smaller than we would expect to see out there in the North Sea. Then it came to me. The trapeze is in fact a pair of pallet bars. They can be hooked under the deck of a pallet and used to lift the result to the deck of a rig. Surely I thought no-one has done this for thirty years in the North Sea. Then I had a good look at the small craft, and saw that it was a crewboat, and shock horror!! it was flying the American flag. I think from all this, and the fact that the platform is provided with a boat landing, we can reasonably summise that rather than being in the North Sea the platform is in fact in the Gulf of Mexico. Is a picture of an American platform the best way of advertising Scotland?

THE BOURBON DOLPHIN

Time passes, and when the Norwegian Royal Commission announced that they would report on the Bourbon Dolphin accident in February 2008 it seemed such a long way off, to the extent that the Norwegian unions protested that the timing was wrong. But now February is almost upon us, and both those in the industry likely to be affected by the results and those outside who solely have an interest, are waiting for the findings.

Over the months there have been a variety of reports in the press as the witness testimony has been taken, usually presented as far as one could see, in a way which highlighted the reporter's own views as to what had happened. In addition nearly everyone had issued interim guidance, from the IMO to Statoil. In the UK the Marine Safety Forum has set up a number of committees looking into all aspects of the hiring and operation of anchor-handlers, but over all there have been a couple of news report of interest. The first was a in the Norwegian paper Sunnmørsposten and was as follows:

“Anchor handling conditions do not come under any regulations by the authorities. In order to gain acceptable stability, I chose to keep more fuel on board than may be usual. But this condition was only one example. We did other calculations that showed that the vessel could operate as an anchor handling vessel with almost no fuel on board.” said Strand in his statement. 

One of the captains of the “Bourbon Dolphin” has previously stated that he quickly learned that it was best to keep the fuel tanks as full as possible for as much of the time as possible in order to maintain the best stability.

The second was in Lloyds List, a paper which which english speakers will be familiar. This went as follows, starting with some comments from another shipmaster who was out there on the fateful day:

"During the operations I noticed that things took longer compared to other boats and that the Dolphin in certain cases, had problems executing specific operations in the correct way." Captain Bergtun had to go on the radio and tell the Bourbon Dolphin skipper how to carry out certain tasks. "I didn't know any of the crew personally, but I have been told from others that knew some of them that their experience with anchor-handling was lacking".

However, Bourbon Chief executive Trond Myklebust said this week that he did not accept that the crew lacked experience. "We have internal guidelines for these things stating that the captain and the first mate must have done five rig moves before they can do their job alone", he said. Captain Remoy had many years experience in the wheelhouse of a fishing boat, which Mt Myklebust regarded as "relevant experience". He added "never at any time was I unconfident sending the Bourbon Dolphin to sea with this crew".

THISTLE

The report that there had been a fire on the Thistle Platform and that as a result many people had been evacuated to other installations did not come as a complete surprise to me. I was out there on an anchor-handler of the time helping as best we could to put the thing together. It was not a question in those days of building a complete topsides and lifting it into place with an unfeasibly large crane, rather, small bits weighing about 200 tons were towed out on barges and lifted into place like big Lego bricks by a crane on the bow of a tanker.

Later I was on a platform ship supplying it with what it needed to keep going. The fact that it had been designed without a laydown area for deck cargo meant that every visit was extremely lengthy, and its position in, what for the UK is the far North makes the opportunities for work somewhat limited.

So it looks like things have always been a bit difficult at Thistle, to the point that apparently the workers there call it "The Black Pig", stealing the name from Captain Pugwash's pirate ship, or the Oil Mariner, or an Argentinian supply ship out in the Falklands.

For our part we used to have a large advert from the motoring press pasted up beside the aft driving position. It said in big letters "THISTLE GETS YOU GOING"!

THE FESTIVE SEASON

As I wrote the grimmer parts of this newsletter I realised that we needed a bit of festive cheer, and I found myself looking back at Christmases spent at sea. Indeed seafarers can usually remember where they were for every Christmas they spent away, and I am no different. This particular Christmas was my first in the oil industry. I had been given the job of Mate on a well testing vessel out in the Arabian Gulf, and by the time it came to Christmas day was adjusting the very unusual work and the great skill of every-one involved. On this Christmas day we were doing our job as usual, and so were tied up stern to a small platform and flaring off 20,000 bpd. The bridge windows were covered by shields to protect us from the heat despite the presence of deluges astern of the flare and we were waiting our turn to use the radio to connect with the phone system to make our Christmas calls home.

Ahead of us in the process was a guy with a very English accent talking to a guy with an Indian accent, the former on the shore and the latter on an offshore installation of some sort. The exchange went like this.

Also, in my search for entertaining writing with which to encourage a bit of cheer, a poetry writing evening class which I had attended some years ago came to mind. Most of us in the class were single - some of us divorced, some just unmarried - and as a result there was a tendency for there to be a bit of SEX in our work. One of the ladies in the group wrote a poem about a non relationship with an older man, and since I was an older man I felt the need to respond. On behalf of older single men everywhere I was not letting her get away with it. So here are the results. They are nothing to do with the marine world and actually nothing to do with Christmas, but I hope they may give you (particularly older men) a bit of a laugh!

PHILOSOPHY 1, EROS 1 

I used to love an older man
"He's wise," I thought, "and kind".
He, alas, cared not for love
Was interested only in my mind.

We'd talk for hours of Wittgenstein
Of Liebniz, Kant and Hume
We'd deconstruct some Locke and then
He'd quietly leave the room.

Resisting my advances
With style and wit and grace
Only made me love him more.
My yearning grew apace.

"It wouldn't be appropriate:
You're much too young", he said.
Eventually I thought, "He's right".
And shagged his son instead.

Susan

 THE OLDER MAN'S PROBLEM 

She was young, slim and fair
And she made me aware
That she thought I was worth her attention.
We were, for a start,
A generation apart.
She said it was not worth a mention.

I have to agree
That her feelings for me
Gave me problems, but I remained distant,
And the plans that she made
To get herself laid
Were shelved, because I was insistent.

Her intimate smiles
and feminine wiles
Made it more and more hard to resist her.
So I had to take flight.
It just wasn't right;
After all I was screwing her sister.

Vic

So everyone out there have a great festive season, if you are ashore, and look forward to a wonderful holiday if you are at sea, and I'll get back to the website in the new year with renewed vigour and lots of plans for improvements.

Best wishes,

Vic Gibson