Having been Master on both kind I have noticed four big differences between a trading ship and a drill ship:
The first is the 4th department, the Drilling department.
The second is, unlike on a trading ship the money making is not carrying cargo, but drilling wells
The third is that drill ships are managed by drilling people, not shipping people
There is another ever present “authority” on a drill ship. the “Company man”
Unless it has changed drastically in the last 5 year this is still relevant to this case.
The legal authority of the Master may be there, but in reality his power to order the drilling department to do anything is limited.
If the Company man order the Toolpusher not to follow the Master’s order he stands very little change of forcing his will on anybody.
Let’s be realistic, the reasons mariners work on MODU’s are:
The schedule is manageable and easier
The money is(was) better then the blue water counterparts
That’s really it, I can’t say the mission was worth it, I can’t say dealing with the incompetence in the office was worth it, when you have 700 people in an office of 5-10 drilling rigs vs shipping operators who may have 30 -40 for a fleet of 100 vessels, it makes you question those “managers and employees” worth to the operations.
This incident will not be the last of its kind, the drilling industry will never be that mariner friendly industry, it won’t, and if you can accept that, you can make a career out of it. The Captain is more like an operations manager of an industrial plant, that still has to answer to executives.
If the captain is not actually in charge that does change things for the captain. But it doesn’t change the fundamental nature of the problem.
If the vessel’s crew is outside in a typhoon rigging tarps to keep the engines running that’s a problem no matter who is in charge or what their title is.
Either way I think @anchorman has got it right, It’s about who ever actually makes decisions being able to communicate to the ones paying the bills.
I like the Movie Deepwater Horizon. It shows exactly the problem you are talking about. The everlasting struggle between company people and seafarers. Remember the saying “The best captains are always sitting ashore.”
That was a hard mentality to crack, even in recent years. When they first added the Drilling Superintendent it was mostly made up of OIMs who could no longer be OIM since they didn’t have Masters tickets. On some rigs it was a battle of who could get in the last word, as many former OIMs were just not able to easily give up the King-shit authority they were used to having. Others were quite happy to give up the BS and make a killer paycheck just worrying about drilling.
In my experience, not really. Most were hired as Captain when there was a separate OIM, and were given the combined roll when it became the company standard. They all had to hold the OIM cert obviously, but all that used to require from a regulatory standpoint was basically a pulse, some time onboard, and a Well Control course. I’ve never seen any sort of meaningful cross training except for onshore managers in a development program (which actually is a great policy). More recent C/M promoted to Master/OIM I believe have a huge leg up in that they have had the last few years to be truly involved with the knowledge and intent that they would have that role/responsibility.
And while the reg required Bridge VDR might not be that useful, from the drilling operations side of things many newer rigs have DFR (Drilling Flight Recorder). Essentially a black box for drilling telemetry covering Well and drilling equipment information, trends, positions, etc…not to mention real-time satellite broadband feed to shore. I can’t remember how far back the history record saved.
But for orders/instructions from the office? Text message and emails might be the lesson from the Horizon.
Tension rods were allegedly not operating properly because the corporations refused to stop production in May 2020, despite the fact that inspections in 2019 determined replacements were needed.
The wording here is a little different as well.
Hurricane Zeta hit the Gulf of Mexico on October 28. The day before Transocean and Beacon Offshore Energy allegedly instructed the crew to “stay latched and continue operations.”
“Plaintiff, along with other crew members on board, strongly disagreed with the decision to stay latched but had no other options but to obey orders,” the lawsuit claims.
After the Deepwater Horizon incident BSEE insisted that independent third party inspectors be on drilling rigs to verify proper subsea maintenance and control was performed. This was due to the lack of maintenance of subsea components that contributed the the Macondo disaster. Basically TOI had cut maintenance to save costs and subsea maintenance is expensive on many levels. [ Rig managers and above got a bonus for cost cutting] I personally saw third party inspectors witness and verify proper maintenance was performed as scheduled after BSEE rule. The oil companies did not like BSEE’s ruling as they had to pay for third party monitors and other reasons as one may guess. Then in May of 2019 BSEE, after lobbying pressure rescinded that rule.
Remove certain prescriptive requirements for real time monitoring.
Based upon BSEE’s evaluation of real time monitoring since the publication of the original WCR, BSEE determined that the prescriptive requirements for how the data is handled may be revised to allow company-specific approaches to handling the data while still receiving the benefits of real- time monitoring.
So the foxes started watching the chicken house again as far as maintenance is concerned. Am I surprised if it turns out the tensioners were not functioning correctly?
No. But it would take a LOT of expensive experts to get to the bottom of this. My guess? As this is a civil suit there one will ever know all the facts. TOI will pay some money to the plaintiffs, swear the plaintiffs to secrecy [just like the DWH] and carry on.
It was resolved decades ago after another Transocean drillship sank killing 88 men. After the Java Sea disaster. the following regulation was added:
46 CFR § 15.520g
(g) An individual serving as mate on a self-propelled surface unit when underway, other than a drillship, must hold an appropriate license, or an MMC endorsed as mate and BS or BCO. When not underway, such a vessel may substitute an individual holding the appropriate BS or BCO endorsement for the mate, if permitted by the cognizant OCMI.
But then Global Drilling and the company that took them over (Transocean) started flagging their ships overseas and the Marshall Islands registry doesn’t follow the CFR’s nor the BSEE require foreign flagships drilling in our EEZ to follow them.
I think the only US flag drillship was the GSF Explorer, which was reflagged Vanuatu after Transocean and GSF merged. The GSF Explorer was hardly a state of the art drillship even on its best day.
A number of US Flagged drillships were built (some in secret but most erased from history in a campaign by oil majors to skirt the rules) but most of them reflagged foreign after the US regulated new safety measures in the wake of the Glomar Java Sea disaster in 1983.
Of course Transocean doesn’t want you to know about the Java Sea and someone paid to have it removed from Wikipedia (along with my personal page and all mention of gCaptain) but you can still find details on some websites: The Glomar Java Sea Accident
DFR does not record maintenance and as you so wisely noted text messages and emails regarding such are now frowned upon. I have been on hundreds of video conferences morning and afternoon. If a questionable decision was under discussion the answer would always be “let’s discuss this later off line. Give me a phone call later.”
It’s our EEZ. You can’t dump in our waters or be in possession of drugs in the EEZ. We enforce that law.
So why do we inspect them in the EEZ since they are going to pick and choose what they follow anyway? A lot of companies have 500 ton Captains working as DPO’s on vessels over 500 tons because they an “Unlimited DPO” ticket. Are you telling me that is illegal. I have emails from the oil companies saying that is OK? Is that illegal John?
Seems like the USCG, BSEE and DC need to pull their craniums out of their rectal cavities and look at what is happening out there instead of ignoring it.
Not that there is much chance of that happening. Just venting….
Worked with a Drilling Super who was not on the Java Sea when he was supposed to be. One of the nicest and smartest Drill Supers I have ever had the pleasure to work side by side.
I could not agree more but I was only in the military for one year so… I don’t really understand why they don’t lead by example.
The USCG specifically is the only federal entity that is judicial, executive, and legislative branch. They write the laws, enforce them, and judge the guilty. They, along with the Navy, also operate most types of vessels.
The uscg is very knowledgeable of the law and, even though cutters are not required to follow our CFRs, they typically lead by example. The average naval officer, however, does not.
I have blown the whistle on illegal acts several times and I paid the cost: my career at sea. And the response from the US military officers I reported illegal acts to was to do absolutely nothing.
I’m not trying to be a smart ass about the jaywalking comment but our military officers all took a higher oath than us and by not enforcing the law it puts Captains in the difficult situation of too often having to negotiate with office personnel, many of which (especially offshore) have never been an officer aboard ship.
We Captains can lead by example but without military enforcement (yes, I said military because there is a reason why the military enforces Maritime law) they can just fire us and promote someone else.
It’s easy to say you “should” lead by example but, to be honest, there have been many days laying in bed (usually after trying to pay the bills and save for my kids education) where I wished I hadn’t done the right thing.
Enforcement is a critical element of our marine safetynet but our military - despite taking an oath to protect and defend - do very little in 2021 to enforce the rules (at least the rules that really matter!)
