Urgent request

[Tony Morcom]

I have been asked by Mr Michael Houlder to provide some details of the Uncle John and also details of the famous rescue of two of her divers from their diving bell.
Michael is in the process of putting together an obituary for the local press for his late father John Houlder. Any one who can help please contact me urgently.

[Doc Vernon]

Uncle JohnOne of the most successful diving support vessels of the 1980s was the SSSV Uncle John operated by Comex Houlder diving. For 10 years this ship completed numerous underwater pipe joints (hyperbaric tie-ins) and other maintenance work in and around the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Dutch_Shelloperated http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_oilfield in the northern http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_SeaThe Uncle John is a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-submersible platform design with a 16 man saturation system, 2 diving bells in separate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_pool, 2 cranes and the ability to stay on station and work in fairly extreme weather. The semi-submersible design is very useful for hyperbaric tie-ins because the significant deck space allowed the transportation and manipulation of a 75 tonne welding habitat and pipe manipulation equipment that have the capability of maneuvering 36-inch-diameter, 1.5-inch-thick steel pipe. The Uncle John is currently owned and operated by Caldive International and is active today in the Gulf of Mexico.
A typical working depth in the Brent Field was 140 m. However, in 1983 the Uncle John and its crew successfully completed the Deep Fjord Diving Program in Onarheims Fjord, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway, where a successful 36-inch hyperbaric tie-in was completed at a depth of 300 m.

http://diving-watch.org/DIVING-PHOTO...AL-DIVING-DAYS

http://myship.com/imo/7529902/UNCLE-JOHN/gallery

Is this the Story on that rescue!
http://news.google.com/newspapers?ni...g=4089,4861322

[Tony Morcom]

Thanks for the info Vernon. It saved me some time. One point worthy of a mention is that when you copy and paste a passage that contains hyperlinks it doesn't seem to work correctly with this system. The hyperlinks get in-bedded in our own server rather than the original. Hence when you click on the link the system can't find it. Have only just discovered why. If you click a link and then look at the address that it is trying to find, the system is trying to find it on our server?!?

However the other links added after work very well and provided a lot of what was wanted, especially the newspaper article. So once again thanks for your help which is really appreciated by Michael Houlder.

[Doc Vernon]

Hi Tony
Thanks for that info on the Hyperlinks!
Funny that how it works,will have to look into that!
Strange that it should embed itself to our MN Link!
Cheers

[John Macadam]

If you are going to pass info onto Michael, then, lets make sure that the facts are correct. First of all, Uncle John was not operated by Comex Houlder (you are not the first one to make that mistake Doc !) The vessel was owned by Houlder Offshore Ltd and operated by the management Company Houlder Comex Ltd., based in Comex Houlder Divings base in Bucksburn Aberdeen. The other facts stated by Doc are almost right. The welding habitat was around 50 tonnes, depending on the equipment in it, there were also two pipe handling frames about 10 - 12 tonnes each. Although there was plenty of space on deck, deck load was always a bit of a problem, hence the wooden sheathing on the columns (to increase the Water Plane Area).The UJ worked for Shell from commissioning in 1977 until 1983, as follows 1997 - 79 Shell Pipelines, 1979 - 1983 Shell Underwater Maintenance. UJ was replaced by Shell's own vessel, Stadive .Then about eighteen months for Statoil on the Statpipe Project. She then went on the open market.
The divers in the rescue were not UJ divers, the trapped bell was from the Stena vessel Stena Seaspread, the UJ came alongside the Seaspread, UJ divers established a swim line to the bell, and they were transferred one by one to the UJ bell. The diver doing the mid water swim was Joe Putnam, who later received an award for his efforts. I was on board at the time.

I would be obliged if you could pass onto Michael, my condolences and tell him that a number of ex Houlder Offshore Staff have expressed an interest to me, in attending the memorial service.

[Doc Vernon]

John Macadam

The information was taken from a Site i found,and if that is incorrect then its not my fault,anyway i was just trying to asssit where i could!
There are i suppose many errors around on the net,so how do we check the absolute thruths!
If one makes an error on such a matter,its not deliberate!
With Thanks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_support_vessel

Why dont you get hold of wikipedia and tell them to rectify it!

[Ivan Cloherty]

John Macadam

Why dont you get hold of wikipedia and tell them to rectify it!

I agree Doc, how many times have we read something on a site and said to ourselves "where the hell did that rubbish come from" I have found Wikepedia one of the few sites that welcome constructive comment and corrections especially "When you were there yourself" at the incident or happening referred to.

A lot of us try to help in good faith, we don't always get it right but we hope to point people in the right direction and there are many on this site who have helped so many others. I for one appreciate their efforts which are given willingly, with the best of intentions and a lot of personal effort and time on their part. So thank you all for your time, your efforts and your compassion in trying to help others, you can be assured that it is appreciated by the recipients you have helped and those you have tried to help.

[Tony Morcom]

I would be obliged if you could pass onto Michael, my condolences and tell him that a number of ex Houlder Offshore Staff have expressed an interest to me, in attending the memorial service.

Consider it done John, and thanks for your input. It is often very frustrating trying to track down reliable info, hence my initial request hoping for someone like your self to provide it. Unfortunately in this particular instance time was of the essence.

[John Macadam]

I forgot to mention that the Onarheim Deep dive was part of Statoil's requirements for UJ to do the work on the Statpipe Project. Contractually, we had to have the vessel and crew ready to dive to the maximum depth of the pipeline being laid, which was crossing the Norwegian Trench. To achieve this, we spent a long time testing and proving equipment, such as breathing systems, helium gas reclaim systems etc. (the reclaim system never did work at that depth !) We also had to increase the bell wire capacities, one crane upgraded to that depth. And had to send our divers to do a simulated dive to 350metres, at Nutec in Bergen, the same divers were then used at Onarheimsfjord. The welding tests there were done with manual arc, and Mig. During this exercise, JMH and Henri DeLauze (President of Comex Services SA) visited the vessel. On completion of these tests, UJ went on to carry out the connections of Statpipe to various platforms and pumping stations.

[David Edes]

I have been asked by Mr Michael Houlder to provide some details of the Uncle John and also details of the famous rescue of two of her divers from their diving bell.
Michael is in the process of putting together an obituary for the local press for his late father John Houlder. Any one who can help please contact me urgently.

This is perhaps a little late, but I was on the Stena Seaspread when this incident happened in 1981
The dive superintendent Mike O'Mara put his career on the line when he organised the first ever bell -bell underwater rescue , but it worked and he was a hero ( he went on to run the HMS Edinburgh gold recovery)!
The divers were employed by Warton Williams (2W) one was Jim Tucker if I remember correctly , he and the other diver were South African