Hitching a lift

[James Curry]

Hitching a lift,cow.jpg

[Doc Vernon]

All i can say to that James is
OMG!!! LOL

[J Gowers]

I sailed on a similar vessal about 20 years ago, the Blue Marlin with Latvian crew, taking two jack up drilling rigs from Louisiana to Mumbai. We lived in the ships accommodation and very nice it was too, two men to a cabin (this was for us passengers the ships crew had single cabins) there was a fridge in each cabin and you could buy beer from the ships bond. I say passengers but we were working on the jackups catching up on maintenance during the day. The cargo in this case two drilling rigs are floated on to the ship when it is ballasted down and once in place the ballast is pumped out and they come up to sailing draft, same procedure to unload the cargo.

img929.jpg

img939.jpg

img953.jpg

[j.sabourn]

Can you remember the names of the jack ups ? I can remember shifting 3 out here on the rig itself one was Japanese owned and the other American can’t rememember much about the third . The one that does stick with me was the American was a bit surprised how the working barge master and the OIM wanted to position her , the first time seen done . Used to wind one of the legs down to a couple of feet off the sea bed and drop it all the way onto the bed when just making headway and almost stopped , then used to get one of the tugs to pivot her like a ballet dancer onto the required heading before dropping the other two legs. It was an art in itself there was no place for being gung-ho as the stresses on that one leg I wouldn’t like to know. Been also on the other end of the job on the tugs it took about at least 12 hours staying hooked up until the rig settled on the bottom. Think I was happier with the semi submersibles more work but less chance of the structure coming adrift. JS.

[J Gowers]

JS it was the CE Thornton and FG Mclintock, ex Reading and Bates who had just merged with Transocean.

I was on semis for about 14 years and then drill ships and although I also worked on jackups I was never permanent crew I was tech support for a number of years mostly jumping around West Africa working on reactivating various types of rigs or checking up or installing maintenance systems or doing various troubleshooting tasks.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

That reminded me of the British naval ship that ran onto rocks near that island off Aus, I think she had nuclear stuff on board so they sent a ship to picky back it back to the UK.
Des

[j.sabourn]

#6 that was off Norfolk Island Des. Shortly before that we were doing a bottom survey for a well known computer company for laying a cable . That was over 20 years ago now. Where the naval vessel had her mishap I often used to use the same anchorage for shelter it was fairly good holding ground.
#5 don’t ring any bells those names JG. Not surprising the number of jack ups around. After another mishap with one think it was just before 1991 and any movements of rigs had to have an Australian marine crew on board in Australian waters.
Cheers JS

[Johnny Kieran]

Here's one just recently up the river.Thames.jpg

[Doug Hardie]

Guaranteed to be out of ZPMC yard in Shanghai. They have their own transportation fleet and export their cranes all over the world .Amazing to see them load out . Roll on and weld to the Deck ! Often wonder who many get damaged on the voyage . They make 80% of the worlds container cranes and were manufacturing 1 crane per day in the early 2000’s
Doug

[James Curry]

I was based in Shanghai over an 18 month period as owners rep on new LNG builds. What a nightmare 6 ships and the more they made the worse they got.
As you say would often see those ships loaded with container cranes heading down river.
#6 Des that was HMS Nottingham , Wolf Rock , near Lord Howe Island.