Life On The Rigs.

[Vaughan]

On a different thread lately, I said I would look up some photos of when I used to work on the gas platforms, back in the mid 80s.  Sorry they are not good quality but all I had was a little point-and-press Kodachrome pocket job.  Digital technology was still a long way in the future!

 

This rig is British Gas 47/3B, on the Rough Field, just off the Humber Estuary. The photo is taken from the deck of a crane barge moored alongside, so you can't see the platform legs, going down to the sea bed.  The rig was a fixed structure but the crane barge was a "semi sub" which had to be moored on anchors.  Someone told me that the height was the same as Norwich Cathedral.  There was certainly a difference of 8 millibars air pressure, between sea level and the flight deck.

Slightly left bottom you can see the footbridge which connected the two.  The crane barge was also an accommodation platform for all the construction workers (known as the bears) who worked alternate shifts completing the construction of the drilling platform.  There were about 1000 men at any one time,  working on the main platform. In rough weather the bridge was removed and we had to change the shifts every day by "shuttling" them across in helicopters. A big exercise in logistics!

Here is the crane barge being towed away, one foggy morning and you can see one of the anchor handling tugs.  Someone told me that crane would lift 800 tons.

The drilling rig, almost finished.  The platform was already in production but previous wells had been drilled by floating rigs alongside.

Lowering a garbage skip down to a supply ship which has backed up to the platform legs.  A long way down!

 

One of the very powerful anchor handling tugs. Notice the big fire monitors, on either wing of the monkey island. I believe this may have been the same ship which, many years later, towed the salvaged wreck of the cruise liner, Costa Concordia.

Another way of coming aboard, by crane basket.  You put your baggage inside the net and then stood around the edge, holding on.  No harness, of course, and 4 men at a time.  I don't think they allow this particular method any more!

 

These are the "slots" which are the actual pipe casings coming up from the wells below.  On the deck above is the "Christmas tree" with all the control valves.  In a real emergency there were hydraulic shears on the sea bed, which could cut through the casings and any drill pipe inside them, to close off the well for good.  This is a smaller platform, on the Leman Bank off Yarmouth.

I don't know how many photos I can post at once, so I will post this and start another one.

 

[FlyingFortress]

Great pictures Vaughan 

I can't identify the semi sub crane barge but 800t lifting capacity was certainly around at that time , I would suspect the capacity of that barge was much larger but looking back the numbers can seem unbelievable.I will try to scan later a picture of one of The Thialf that I worked with in the 90's at the time she was the second largest in the world with a theoretical lifting capacity of 14000t . While I was working her she did the at the time world record single lift of 10500t

The towing tug looks like a Maersk B class the same as in the picture with the personal basket later.

The supply vessel recieving  the waste skip is either The Stirling Dee or Stirling Esk that are still in service in the North Sea as safety stand by vessels. One of them is Called Putford Terminator and had a nasty accident last year when a very large wave put the bridge windows through, the duty officer was thankfully making a cup of tea at the back of the bridge when it happened and was not badly injured.

The other large AHTS I should know but can't think at the moment.

[FlyingFortress]

On the deck of the Maersk B class (Boulder Beater, Battler etc) is a smallish anchor, I would guess 15 to 20 tonnes perfectly capable of holding the crane barge in Southern waters and the surface buoy , the big yellow thing. 

[FlyingFortress]

The last picture of The Spider deck on The Leman platform was one I saw many many times as I was on charter to Shell for many moons 

[RumPunch]

Any photos of the helis / heliports ?

 

[Vaughan]

10 minutes ago, RumPunch said:

Any photos of the helis / heliports ?

Coming up!

[FlyingFortress]

Don't know if this is going to work or not but as I put my back out this morning I did think I will be doing any scanning for a while so I will try to post a link to The Thialf.

https://www.google.com/search?q=thialf+vessel&oq=thialf&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i512l7.11578j0j7&client=ms-android-ee-uk-revc&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&chrome_dse_attribution=1

Reading a bit. The biggest crane in the world now can lift 20,000t

Above I said the Thialf could lift 14,000t and IIRC at that time the biggest was The Micropiri 3000 that could theoretically lift 16,000t 

The lift I was on was the topsides of The Britannia Platform in the North Sea at 10,500t . There was a Channel 4 documentary made at the time called The Mission or something similar, My Ship The Englishman is shown several times and although I am not shown my voice is on several radio communications.

This record was broken within a year by The Micropiri 

[mikeyboy1966]

Interesting pics,

thanks for posting

As a kid,when I lived in martham ,I guess early eighties,

my dad worked for Robin marine as a radar tech,

I recall being taken on board one of the tug boats one day and getting spoilt rotten with Coca-Cola and chocolate etc.

Later on,before we moved to the midlands,my mum worked for Hemple marine paints,

on another occasion,we had an exciting day planned ,going out to sea on a friend of my dads boat,

we hadn’t traveled more that 100 metres from its berth on Gorlston side of the river,when one of the outdrives hit a log or something in the river,

ending that day trip.

[Vaughan]

So let's think a bit more about what "life" was like!

 

Here are my flight deck crew. Fire fighters and lashing handlers. All of them ex Yarmouth or Lowestoft trawlermen who had come offshore to find a job after the death of the fishing industry. Excuse me sounding romantic but these were men I would trust with my life.

Luckily we never had to put it to the test!

My "back to back", Steve Scott, doing alternate two week shifts. He is wearing a "half wing" on his fleece as he was ex aircrew for British Airways Helicopters. Before that, he was a Lowestoft trawler skipper.

 

 

Sorry, pressed the wrong button!

This shows that fishing was free! The galley would freeze the fish, in chunks, and at the end of two weeks, you could take it home on the chopper to feed your family!

[FlyingFortress]

3 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

So let's think a bit more about what "life" was like!

 

Here are my flight deck crew. Fire fighters and lashing handlers. All of them ex Yarmouth or Lowestoft trawlermen who had come offshore to find a job after the death of the fishing industry. Excuse me sounding romantic but these were men I would trust with my life.

Luckily we never had to put it to the test!

My "back to back", Steve Scott, doing alternate two week shifts. He is wearing a "half wing" on his fleece as he was ex aircrew for British Airways Helicopters. Before that, he was a Lowestoft trawler skipper.

 

Yeah a lot of our crews were ex fishing/ trawling.

In the early days they were the only ones who had the ship handling skills that manoeuvring at a platform/rig required.

The deck crew were also the only ones daft enough to work up to their waist in water getting washed around the decks in rough weather.

I distinctly remember one sunny afternoon in Lowestoft having a beer on deck with my crew after work when I was Mate , there were 2x Hull trawlermen and one from Lowestoft ( a Brummie ) and almost wetting myself with laughter listening to them.

[Vaughan]

The Westland 30, which was the "bus" out to the Rough Field. This one in the photo is the first one delivered to British Airways, with the international call sign GO-GAS.

The Sikorski S61. Civilian version of the Sea King.

 

 

The flight deck crew had to be very careful around these things. The downwash on landing could blow you clean off the flight deck. That is what all that netting is for. In rough weather, you had to literally crawl to the aircraft door, across the net.

The Bell 212. The workhorse of the rigs on the Leman Bank off Yarmouth.  Straight out of the Vietnam War but a most reliable, sturdy and faithful machine.

Laying down seawater on the flight deck to test the fire main pumps, which were huge Caterpillar diesels. We could also lay down A triple F (Aqueous Film Forming Foam) at the same rate.

This was the cold buffet at the start of our New Year's Eve dinner on the platform. The hog's head was a real one. 

The catering crew were almost all ex RN or Army catering corps and were fiercely proud of the meals that they cooked for us. There may not have been a drop of alcohol but I am certain you could not have eaten in a restaurant anywhere in Norfolk, better than on those platforms.

 

 

Spare a little thought in these difficult times, for the incredible technology and teamwork, which is keeping your gas supplies coming inshore.

[FlyingFortress]

13 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

The Westland 30, which was the "bus" out to the Rough Field. This one in the photo is the first one delivered to British Airways, with the international call sign GO-GAS.

The Sikorski S61. Civilian version of the Sea King.

 

 

The flight deck crew had to be very careful around these things. The downwash on landing could blow you clean off the flight deck. That is what all that netting is for. In rough weather, you had to literally crawl to the aircraft door, across the net.

The Bell 212. The workhorse of the rigs on the Leman Bank off Yarmouth.  Straight out of the Vietnam War but a most reliable, sturdy and faithful machine.

Laying down seawater on the flight deck to test the fire main pumps, which were huge Caterpillar diesels. We could also lay down A triple F (Aqueous Film Forming Foam) at the same rate.

This was the cold buffet at the start of our New Year's Eve dinner on the platform. The hog's head was a real one. 

The catering crew were almost all ex RN or Army catering corps and were fiercely proud of the meals that they cooked for us. There may not have been a drop of alcohol but I am certain you could not have eaten in a restaurant anywhere in Norfolk, better than on those platforms.

 

 

Spare a little thought in these difficult times, for the incredible technology and teamwork, which is keeping your gas supplies coming inshore.

Great pictures Vaughan. Keep them coming.

Always good to see it from the other side. Only got to visit a few mostly when paying off offshore.

One I remember distinctly was going up to a Dutch " Nobel" jack up that we had been working. My company had bought 2 ships from Smit Lloyd and the first one had gone straight back on charter out of Den Helder doing the same job much to the disgust of the Dutch. We had experienced a load of problems discharging bulk (powder, cement and the like) to this particular rig and we suspected ( no we knew) that they were trying to get us a bad reputation. We had no problems with any other rigs. This had left to several heated exchanges over the VHF which led to us giving the Barge Engineer step by step instructions on how to load bulk. As we knew he was deliberately sabotaging the process we led him down a dark alley that proved our point. We successfully pumped bulk after that.

When I payed off I had to do the basket transfer to the rig to await the helio . When I was waiting in the radio shack this enormous Dutchman walked in and asked if I was off that Supplier ( Dutch slang for Supply Vessel) as he was the barge engineer. I replied yes I am The Captain with much trepidation.

He smiled and said "fair play" and shook my hand .

[Tobster]

I currently work on the worlds largest man made floating structure, just under 500m long (Pioneering Sprit) current SWL lift capacity 50000 + Tons. The little supply ship at the rear is about the size of the ones in Gt Yarmouth.

[FlyingFortress]

1 hour ago, Tobster said:

I currently work on the worlds largest man made floating structure, just under 500m long (Pioneering Sprit) current SWL lift capacity 50000 + Tons. The little supply ship at the rear is about the size of the ones in Gt Yarmouth.

During my musings earlier about The Thialf I was wondering how she compared to the PS . Just as well I didn't use her original name 

I must say that thing is some beast. 

IIRC she is almost 400m long so is pushing the big Container Ships for being the largest moving object on the planet  

May I ask what is your job on board and maybe you could chip in with some of your tales and possibly pictures on this thread.

I remember her fitting out at Rotterdam prior to her being fully in commission and speaking to some British guys working on her. 

Found it hard to believe what they said it could do , but it does 

[Tobster]

3 hours ago, FlyingFortress said:

During my musings earlier about The Thialf I was wondering how she compared to the PS . Just as well I didn't use her original name 

I must say that thing is some beast. 

IIRC she is almost 400m long so is pushing the big Container Ships for being the largest moving object on the planet  

May I ask what is your job on board and maybe you could chip in with some of your tales and possibly pictures on this thread.

I remember her fitting out at Rotterdam prior to her being fully in commission and speaking to some British guys working on her. 

Found it hard to believe what they said it could do , but it does 

My role on board is Senior NDT & Project Supervisor.

During her build in Korea she was built in two halves, each one floated out and then joined together, 3 months later one of the engineers worked out that the slot at the bow wasn’t wide enough for the removal of Shell Brent platforms. Hulls separated port side hull back into dry dock, 25 flights of the Russian Antonov heavy lift plane at a cost of 1 million per flight, to get enough of the required German steel to Korea in a timely fashion, to tie in with the dry dock schedule, fabricate 7m wide blocks to widen the ship, then float out and join again. I’d hate to think what the total  cost of that mistake was 10s of millions.

Everything about PS is huge, when we sailed through the Bosporus Strait they had to ballast down 27m to be able to get under the 3 bridges, to achieve this they took on 1.2 million metric tonnes of water in the ballast tanks, the vessel itself weighs 400000 tonnes, I believe this was another world record.

since the above photo they have installed the 25000 ton Jacket lift system at the stern, thus increasing her overall Length to just under 500m, and with a width of 136m, she dwarfs the container ships. Oh and for good measure’s added a 5000 ton crane at the port side rear.

I will try to post another photo I have showing the JLS system.

unfortunately a lot of the material I have is protected by copyright so I’m unable to post on here, if anyone is interested you can look some videos & photos at Allseas.com.

 

[Bikertov]

A fascinating thread Vaughan - thank you and the other contributors, do keep posting more stuff !

[Bikertov]

8 hours ago, Vaughan said:

Spare a little thought in these difficult times, for the incredible technology and teamwork, which is keeping your gas supplies coming inshore.

Us "mere mortals" clearly just don't have a clue the hard/tough work and risk that goes on to keep us in our easy and comfortable lifestyles.

What must go on behind the scenes - even to give us our basic cooking, heating and lighting from raw fuel to delivered energy, that we so take for granted - is incredible.

We owe you much more gratitude than we could ever realise !

[FlyingFortress]

1 hour ago, Tobster said:

My role on board is Senior NDT & Project Supervisor.

During her build in Korea she was built in two halves, each one floated out and then joined together, 3 months later one of the engineers worked out that the slot at the bow wasn’t wide enough for the removal of Shell Brent platforms. Hulls separated port side hull back into dry dock, 25 flights of the Russian Antonov heavy lift plane at a cost of 1 million per flight, to get enough of the required German steel to Korea in a timely fashion, to tie in with the dry dock schedule, fabricate 7m wide blocks to widen the ship, then float out and join again. I’d hate to think what the total  cost of that mistake was 10s of millions.

Everything about PS is huge, when we sailed through the Bosporus Strait they had to ballast down 27m to be able to get under the 3 bridges, to achieve this they took on 1.2 million metric tonnes of water in the ballast tanks, the vessel itself weighs 400000 tonnes, I believe this was another world record.

since the above photo they have installed the 25000 ton Jacket lift system at the stern, thus increasing her overall Length to just under 500m, and with a width of 136m, she dwarfs the container ships. Oh and for good measure’s added a 5000 ton crane at the port side rear.

I will try to post another photo I have showing the JLS system.

unfortunately a lot of the material I have is protected by copyright so I’m unable to post on here, if anyone is interested you can look some videos & photos at Allseas.com.

 

Wow 

Thanks for that Tobster

I don't know why but I had her length down as 380m.

As you say at 500m dwarfs the Container Ships I used to park for a living.

Any more you can post without breaking confidentiality would be appreciated 👍

[FlyingFortress]

Blooming heck.

Upside down.

AGAIN 🤣

[DAVIDH]

13 hours ago, Vaughan said:

Notice the big fire monitors, on either wing of the monkey island

 

[AndyTBoater]

Did my very first trip on the Rough B. 

Bit of an emergency so I was taken along to bulk up numbers.

Spent 3 days attempting to fly out of Caister because of snow and fog. We were driven to Immingham and spent a further 2 days trying to fly out of there. Nearly made it twice on the first day before turning back and finally made it on day 2.  Hotbedding and 16 hour days and another crew doing 16 hour nights were fun - especially as being an apprentice meant I was constantly being woken up and moved because someone bigger wanted my bed. Spent most of the trip curled up on the floor. 

Weather was so bad and so cold that the salt water fire hoses we ran out as a firewater precaution were freezing on the deck. 

Finally got the job done and flew back to Cleethorpes. Flight back was interesting as the wind was at the limit so the pilot lifted a few feet and literally threw the helicopter off the side of the helideck. We plummeted down and pulled up with what seemed like only feet to spare. I am sure it was much more than that but felt a lot closer. The Dauphin helicopter was quite small and it was like flying 12 on a powered hanglider. The pilot was brilliant but also would wind us up by shouting through the intercom things like "oh my god - I havent seen that flashing light before" and things like that. 

When we finally got back to GY there was really bad snow which had drifted and closed the A12 GY to LT dual carriageway. We made it to Hopton before getting stuck and spent the night in the car on the side of the road. 

As a youngster it was a brilliant adventure - but not one I wanted to ever repeat. 

Those were the days when the men were made of steel and the rigs were made of wood. 

 

 

[RumPunch]

Bit dusty, but one from my collection

 

 

[Vaughan]

That is an S76 by the look of it. The retractable undercarriage made them very fast.  I think they were used a lot up in the Brent Field, where the journey is longer.

On winter nights with very high pressure, we used to be able to work the Brent by VHF radio, from our platform off Humberside.  There is a master platform up there for air traffic control, where we were told they handled more aircraft movements in a day than Heathrow Airport.

[RumPunch]

9 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

That is an S76 by the look of it. The retractable undercarriage made them very fast.  I think they were used a lot up in the Brent Field, where the journey is longer.

On winter nights with very high pressure, we used to be able to work the Brent by VHF radio, from our platform off Humberside.  There is a master platform up there for air traffic control, where we were told they handled more aircraft movements in a day than Heathrow Airport.

365N - when I joined CHC post RAF we were flying them from Humberside & Blackpool. Also had 76A+ & C's in Humberside and North Denes

[Vaughan]

9 hours ago, DAVIDH said:

 

If you were asking about terminology, David, a fixed fire main nozzle, which can rotate and elevate like a gun turret, is usually called a monitor.  On almost all ships, the open deck on top of the bridge is known as the monkey island.  On older ships this would be where the binnacle was fixed, for the magnetic compass.