Archive for the ‘Photography’ Tag
Here we are almost on location and the wind picks up, 30 knot winds aren’t good when you are moving a large Flotel next to a platform, at the moment we have moved a safe distance away and have four vessels holding us here, three of the boats are Viking boats so I had to try a panorama and see if I could get them all in.
Here is a couple on their own, in the winter these boat spend a lot of time way up north breaking up the ice sheets.
You can just make out a FPSO on the horizon.
We can’t forget the other boat, the Island Vanguard, there is a couple of our guys on it, feeling a bit queasy I bet.
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I’m back at work tomorrow, flying up to Inverness and then hire car to Invergordon, I’ve never stayed in the town of Invergordon before, always on a rig, so I might have time to explore a bit, If I do i’ll try a snap a few off and show you the place.
I’m joining the Maersk Resilient which is a large Jack-up, it’s one I was on a couple of xmases ago.
Here’s a shot of Invergordon from a rig’s point of view.
Here’s a shot of the Jack-up in the first picture I took a long time ago, I’ll be surprised if its still there.
Some of the locals just carry on as if nothing is happening.
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I didn’t get around to posting an iPhone Friday yesterday so thought I would do a iPhone post today combined with a Hank update, there isn’t a great deal to see as most of the work has been carried out under Hank, things like new adjustable suspension all round, drop spindles fitted on the front, lowering the car by 2 1/2″ , rubber bumpstops and new gators fitted all over the place.
Here’s the bits you can see.
New Stainless steel front bumper and clear indicator lens.
New rear stainless steel rear bumper and rear light lens, these and the front bumpers will be coming off when Hank goes into paint but would rather make sure they fit now then when he’s got fresh paint.
New steering wheel and a Gene Burg gear shifter.
Have a great weekend.
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I’m back on dry land after 14 days at sea, it was a good rig move, all went well and nobody got hurt.
This shot is from a rig move I was part of, starting in Amsterdam, we had a couple of days before we left and found this really nice steak house, we would order beers and steak and sit outside and watch the world go by, mainly on boats and bicycles, very relaxing.
Have a great weekend.
I’m having some problems with WordPress at the moment, I find I’m having to log on each and every time I wish to comment or ‘like’ on anyones blog, this gets really annoying after a while, so if I don’t comment I’m sorry and I hope they sort it out soon, I have contacted them and each time I do the responses I get is always the same, “turn on cookies” which I have done but its still the same but with the added hassle of around 40 spams a day.
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Morning all, I thought I would introduce you to my other passion, as you may of read in my last post, I’m a bit of a petrol head, or maybe I should say a bit of a frustrated petrol head, see I love cars, love working on them, would love to restore one, love everything about them, the trouble is I don’t have a garage, well not one big enough to hold a car, so it makes it very difficult to work on it, I have however spent the weekend turning my small garage into a workshop, and i’m really pleased with the result. So now when the weather is warmer and it stops raining I can drive the car up to the workshop and work on it, albeit still outside but better than not being able to work on it at all.
Now I suppose you would like to see my pride and joy.
It’s a 1969 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia, imported from sunny California, this is it as I purchased it just over a month ago.
As I work on “Hank”(thanks to my wife) I’ll post more shots, I will be showing Hank at Carfest in August this year.
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On my recent visit to Scotland I spent a bit of time with my Nephews, over a few cold beers we talked about the beauty of Scotland, the flora and fauna, like the salmon making it’s way up stream to lay her eggs, red squirrels collecting nuts for the cold winter ahead and young deer scratching at the snow for some winter grass to eat.
This got me thinking and we made a decision to venture out the following day and check out some of Scotland’s wildlife.
Now you may be thinking how I don my thermals and waterproofs, fill a backpack with essentials like spare water, barley sugar sweets, one of those foil sheets, a GPS, shave off my moustache but keep my beard, grab my hiking pole and head off, after of course informing family and friends of where we are going and when we will be back.
Thats what a sensible person would do, but i’m an offshore worker and a petrol head so we took this.
A V8.
Found a bit of snow on the top of the mountain.
We aren’t stuck here, just changing drivers.
You don’t need to follow a track in this beast, as long as the trees have been cut down.
I don’t know what all the fuss is about now, we didn’t see any wildlife.
No tree or any wildlife was hurt in the making of this post. Have a great weekend.
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I spent 3 days in Kirkwall waiting for a boat a while back and as I have just done a few posts about the Shetland Islands I thought I better include the Orkney’s, this is St.Magnus Cathedral which dominates the skyline of Kirkwall, the main town of Orkney, a group of islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. It is the most northerly cathedral in the British Isles, a fine example of Romanesque architecture built for the bishops of Orkney when the islands were ruled by the Norse Earls of Orkney.
It is owned not by the church, but by the burgh of Kirkwall as a result of an act of King James III of Scotland following Orkney’s annexation by the Scottish Crown in 1468. It has its own dungeon.
Its construction commenced in 1137 and it was added to over the next three hundred years. The first Bishop was William the Old, and the diocese was under the authority of the Archbishop of Nidaros in Norway. It was for Bishop William that the nearby Bishop’s Palace was built.
Before the Reformation, the Cathedral was presided over by the Bishop of Orkney, whose seat was in Kirkwall. Today it is a parish church of the Church of Scotland.
Sneaky shot of the inside.
Front door surround has seen better days, love those hinges.
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Yes I know, but I promise it will be the last, First up is an old church that is now the Shetland Library, tried it in B&W first, I love the way you can see all the books through the windows.
Then in colour with a bit of vignette going on.
Last was one from the harbour that caught my eye.
Have a great weekend everybody, we have a busy one lined up, we are out socialising tonight and tomorrow night, just hope we can remember how to do it.
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Well after another successful rig move in the North Sea I thought it was about time I shared some more details about how and why we move these things, Why? well that’s easy, drill more holes! Get more Oil/Gas. Actually it’s not just that, a lot of rig moves will be to work on and repair sub sea assets, more about that if I ever find out more about that.
This last move was a re-entry, meaning we were putting the rig back on a location that had been drilled/worked on before. Sounds easy? Sort of, That is if you get it on the correct location, it’s easy to tell once you send a ROV down because you will see the assets on the sea bed, Tolerance on this sort of move is about 1 meter, on the other hand if it’s an open location, (meaning nothing on the sea bed) tolerance is around 5-10 meters.
For those of you who don’t know, a Semi-submersible (half above water, half below) drilling rig is held in position by 8 or 12 large anchors, around 12-15 tons, these are spread out around the rig evenly, So after the normal safety talks and meetings it’s time to start, we normally use 2 or 3 AHV’s (Anchor Handling Vessels, a Big Boat) These vessels all have Nav systems onboard, basically a laptop where they can see the rig, the anchor positions and themselves and the other AHV’s all live, if they move in the water they move on the screen.
For the first part of the move the AHV will come in close to the rig and we will past down the PCP (Permanent Chasing Pennant), This is a collar permanently attached to the anchor chain and a 150 meter cable with a socket in the end, once passed down the the AHV it is attached to the boats work wire.
Here you can see a PCP wire cable running down the leg and into the water, when it appears again, it’s the short bit of chain and then the collar.
The AHV’s work wire running down the deck. I took this shot while we were just standing by, if we had been working I would not be allowed on the back deck.
Once attached, the AHV will proceed out to the anchor following a line on the nav screen.
Now another thing we had to do on this rig move was De-ballast before any anchors were recovered, why I hear you ask? Either you asked that question or were so bored you have already gone onto the next blog, but i’ll tell you anyway.
So what happens is, the anchor is lifted off the sea bed, brought up to the stern roller of the AHV, checked out and then the rigs large winches will haul in the anchor chain and store it in the chain lockers, but what do we do with the anchor then? we need to put it somewhere, so we rack it on these things.
Just under the fairleads (the wheels with the anchor chains going through) is the cowcatcher, (not sure if thats the real name for them) this is where the anchors are racked, they hook under the CC and the winch pulls tight and they don’t move. Now some of you will see the problem here, I’ll show you another photo of the rig we just moved at transit draft, meaning it’s de-ballast.
Now you see the problem, if we don’t de-ballast, the fairleads and the cow catchers are under water and we can’t see them to rack the anchors. You can see here how the rig floats in the water when it’s at working draft by the marks on the legs, this is now at transit draft, up on the pontoons ready for towing.
Now to get the rig up to transit draft is just a matter of pumping out all the water and up she comes, now you are waiting for me to say, Ah but it’s not as easy as that, and no it is really that easy. Oh but there is one sticky bit, the whole process of de-ballasting can take up to 12 hours and during a 3-4 hour period when the cross braces are coming out of the water is the critical time, during this time the rig is very unstable, no helicopters can land and no cranes and work, in fact if like me and you had to many mince pies at xmas you have to get yourself a PP (Porky Partner), now during the critical stage your PP must be at the opposite side of the rig to you, I work forward so my PP has to work aft, he wants to go to the mess for lunch on the port side, I have to go sit on the starboard side, it’s easy once you get use to it, during this very rig move I forgot to tell my PP I was going for a salad, I was in the mess and suddenly in he walked, the look of shock and horror on his face said it all when he saw me………..eating the last of the chocolate double ripple ice cream. Ok I just made that last bit up but the rest about the helicopters and cranes is all true.
Once all the anchors are racked and a boat is on the tow bridle we can start the move, here is a racked anchor. You can see one racked and the other chain where that anchor has been removed.
It’s as simple as that, all in a days work, or 10.
P.S. You know I don’t mean the dummies bit.
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Yes I know it’s supposed to be iPhone Friday but i’m getting into this HDR stuff.
Stretch commented yesterday on the work that goes into making these boats so thought I better show this one, probably made for the museum behind me (in the photo not now). gives you an idea of the skill these people must have and the amount of work that goes into building such a craft.
This one is a closer look at the stone hut on the pier, again because of the rain and wind I didn’t hang around to read any signs so not sure exactly what its for, at a guess I would say a place to work on nets or small machinery as the doors are not big enough to fit a boat in. Nice looking building though.
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