I don’t know if it was a Draupner freak wave, but in Nov. 1981 a storm blew up in the Northern North Sea and caused some monster waves.
I was Marine Advisor on the LB 200 at the time.
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The storm came out of the NE, which is very unusual, causing chaos all around the Northern North Sea. I can’t remember if it was the Hermod or Balder, but one of them broke moorings and came adrift that day a bit further south in the British sector
The McDermott owned LB200 was moored on the NE side of Statfjord B platform, acting as temporary Floatel during hook-up and commissioning with 550 people on board (500 Pax + 50 crew).The blue boxes were additional LQ on deck
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That position was chosen because storms usually came from the SW, or NW, thus she would drift away from the platform, not towards it
As the storm blew up worker on Statfjord B was called back, the telescopic gangway lifted and the LB 200 was warped 1000’ away from the platform.
All 14 anchors were out, tested and holding.
As the storm got stronger the assisting tug Maersk Ranger was hooked up, all pax living on deck was moved below and the Camp Boss ordered to serve food and run movies continuously to keep them happy.
Nobody allowed outside. You can see here why:
When one of the upwind anchors start slipping we manned the Winch Control panels in the Control Tower with all available personnel to keep slacking and heaving in as required to keep more anchors from slipping.
It got a bit rough. The wave rider buoy recorded 23.6 m. max wave and the last info from the standby boat was 120 kts. at his level (Before the anemometer blew out of his mast)
I reported the situation to Mobil in Bergen.They asked if they should get helicopters standing by at Flesland in case we needed to evacuate unnecessary personnel. I told them that everybody was safe and calm and that we had the situation under control. If the radio news reported that preparations were ongoing for evacuation “I would have 500 panicked people on my hand and they would have twice that of panicked relatives ashore, so leave it alone”.
One of the company’s ships that I worked for, built in Bremer Vulcan was in the same storm. She was on her maiden round voyage and the guys onboard said the conditions were horrific.
I concur. Not one is the same that’s what makes it so interesting. Always thinking about new solutions to tackle a problem. And when successful there is the satisfaction afterwards. Addictive work environment.
Likewise. I had a few jobs as Salvage Surveyor and as Salvage Master back in the 1990s.
The last job requires you to be tough as nail, which I found out I’m not, i found out when I did a salvage job on a small container feeder that had run on a sand bank just a few cables from Pasir Panjang Container Terminal in Singapore.
I came out with two tugs, ready to use brute force to pull the ship free, “no matter what”.
I talked to the Danish Master who was a year from retirement and had never had an accident before. He felt very bad for having gone on the wrong side of a channel marker when leaving the wharf. (He had Pilot exemption)
He explained that he had been supervising discharging and loading since he had an inexperienced Ch.Officer and had not had any real rest or sleep for 36 hrs.(Totally against the rules, I know)
I checked the depth around the ship and sounded all tanks and found that she would be easy to pull off on the next HW. In this case I felt so bad for the Master that I waited fort HW to ensure minimum damages, instead of jerking her off by brute force as would be “normal” when doing a salvage on LOF terms.
After diver inspection and Class approval he sailed, with only 24 hrs. delayed. Not as a happy man, but at least happier then he would have been if there had been extensive damages from the salvage operation.
The owner of the small salvage company I did the occasional job for was not as happy, since his salvage claim under LOF was not as strong as it could have been. (My last job as Salvage Master)
