Just as a change from the main topics on this forum, gun ownership, the Jones Act and the wonders of Norway I attach the following recent release from the IMCA, and invite comments. I think at the very least the name of the rig should have been included. Rig owners and operators need to learn. When will jack-up owners ever put hoses on both sides of their rigs?
"A recent alert from the International Marine Contractors’ Association (IMCA) looks at lessons to be learned from a recent incident in which a platform supply vessel (PSV) incurred some damage after colliding with the legs of a jack-up drilling rig. The incident occurred after transfer of water to the rig. The PSV had been ready to disconnect the hose, but the rig informed the PSV that there would be a delay. The PSV was to the windward (weather) side of the rig and the weather was “rough”, with the wind approximately 22 knots. A little under an hour after completing transfer of cargo, but while the hose was still connected, the PSV starboard engine and thrusters tripped. As a result the PSV started to move astern and to starboard. DP control was immediately transferred to manual mode. The hose was dropped in the water. While pulling away to safety, the PSV made contact with the forward leg of the drilling rig.
“What went wrong? What were the causes? Procedures were not followed: Vessel working on the weather side as the jack-up rig was not geared up to receive water on the lee side; Equipment: Mechanical seal of fuel oil pump was damaged suddenly indicating material failure. What lessons were learnt? What actions were taken? Better management and assessment of risk during simultaneous operations – if required, the vessel should come off and get out of the safety zone; While material failure of items can be unpredictable, planned maintenance schedules and manufacturer’s instructions should be followed for critical equipment.”
If you know you’re done just get the hose off. Before DP we tied up to the rigs and would have 5 hoses on deck pumping everything at once. Early DP vessels attempted that shit and snatched a lot of hose of the sides of the rigs. Ask me how I know…
I don’t imagine Alwin wanted to be sitting there with the hose attached unless he had to. I hate when it’s intermittent and the rig nickel and dimes you all day with a displacement. Isnt that what the Bankston was doing at the time?
Its kind of funny and sad at the same time this exact scenario has played out so many times vessel on standby on wx side of whatever has problem and strikes installation. Why do you have to ask what went wrong? I haven’t seen any company in recent history that doesn’t have a policy for working on wx side also most have policy in place for extended standby time alongside. I’m sure policy and procedures where not followed on both sides vessel and rig. On this incident the vessel asked the rig to disconnect and that request was denied extending their exposure and resulting in contact. I don’t know why the rig didn’t retrieve the hose but i’m going to guess they had more important things to do with the crane. IMCA, vessel owners, rig owners and oil and gas companies chartering these assets can keep putting policy on paper and these things are going to keep happing. It’s my opinion enough procedures and policy are in place to keep this type of incident from occurring. Maybe we should take off the blinders and look at culture in the industry. It’s easy to place blame it’s always harder to fix the problem maybe if the oil companies want procedures followed more closely they should have more direct interaction with its contractors. I’m not a fan of more oversight but if the contractor had riders onboard this type of incident could more easily be avoided it’s not always easy for vessel crew to enforce policy but company reps sure can.
It was great you pull up and tell the rig it’s to rough to tie up I’ll probably break your lines then they suck you into tying up and an hour later you part both lines and they ask why you parted the lines. Funny shit
I don’t imagine Alwin wanted to be sitting there with the hose attached unless he had to. I hate when it’s intermittent and the rig nickel and dimes you all day with a displacement. Isnt that what the Bankston was doing at the time?
Then he had no choice but to sit there while waiting on the rig to start pumping mud back to them.
This IMCA incident happened after they were known to be done with a cargo transfer. The rig denied their request to pick the hose up. This captain should have had his guys unhook the hose and leave it sitting on the deck at the stern. When he lost his thrusters all he would have had to do was go to manual and let the hose slip over the back of the boat. Instead it sounds like he left it attached and got himself in a bind while his guys were trying to unhook the hose. His attempt at not trying to rip the hose off the side of the rig and injure his people in the process is why he hit the rig. He should never have left it connected once they were done.
They can either pick their hose up safely and stow it when we ask or fish it out of the water after we throw it overboard in an emergency.
We don’t know the status of the hose from information provided it’s assumed the hose was left attached but it could have just as easily been lying on deck.
That should be the plan but how many DPO’s in the gulf are even slightly competent boat handlers? Had that person ever crew boated cargo or operated manually offshore better yet on that vessel? most company policies keep that form happing.
I’m not trying to defend the vessel operator but with supplied information it’s hard to know what exactly happened except contact was made and an engine went offline.
You also more than likely watched DP come of age. My reference was to the new crop of DPO’s that haven’t performed live boat operations around anything other than the dock.
Thanks for the interesting comments. Even though its more than twenty years since I was captain of an offshore vessel this sort of stupidity still makes me angry. The problem is not what the ship did or did not do, or even what the competence of the ship handler was. It is just unacceptable that in 2017 there are rigs out there without hoses on both sides effectively limiting the possibility of positioning the ship more safely on the lee side, and also completely idiotic that because the think they have “more important things to do” they should fail to recover the hose once the job is completed, leave the ship attached to the rig to windward in worsening weather.
It’s been almost 10 years since I’ve serviced a floater or ship that doesn’t have hose reel stations on both sides.
In this case was this an old jack up with only one working side? Did the rig request them on the wx side because they needed to make a lift that could only be done from that crane? We’re they using a canned JSA and didn’t give the whole scenario much thought? Since they were on the wx side should they have went past a simple JSA and done high risk analysis and rewrote the JSA? If they were confused they should’ve called the operations guy who has zero experience doing this and got his two cents from his recliner. Or they could’ve just told the rig I’m in a bind pick it up off my deck or fish it out of the water.
Few years ago one night we were pumping water and barite to a platform. Non dp boat tied up.
We saw the h2s alarm go off and saw guys walking around in scbas. We were on the downwind side. The mate was on watch and called the platform asking if there was a drill. No reply. He tried three times and got no response so after that we donned our scbas, shut the transfer down and dumped the hoses and the mooring line. About 15 minutes later the company man called up and started chewing ass on why we left?
Next day I had to go up for a meeting, pre-obm transfer meeting. The toolpusher tried to chew my ass about this and my reply was ’ is it too much to ask to know if you are going to decide to have a drill?’ His response was ‘assume it’s a drill unless we call you.’
Following this incident the subject of drills came up in the toolbox talk before we came alongside everytime.
