With all the goods news in the media about the rescue of our stranded astronauts I was looking for some close up of the Space X recovery vessel in action yesterday. I haven’t found any yet, nor mention of the name of the vessel but I did come across this website about real spaceship.
Is that one of the guice boats that got fitted out for recovering the manned dragon?
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This is the Megan info from SpaceOffshore giving the details.
"Megan (Previously named GO Searcher) is a SpaceX Dragon recovery vessel based at Port Canaveral, Florida. Alongside identical twin ship Shannon, both vessels are designed for Dragon capsule recovery operations. Megan is named after Megan McArthur, the second female NASA astronaut to fly on SpaceX’s Dragon capsule.
Starting out with SpaceX in 2016 as a fairing recovery / operational support vessel, Megan transitioned over to Dragon capsule recovery in 2018 as SpaceX focused on developing the Commerical Crew program under contract with NASA."
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For anyone curious as to what the mariners aboard the Megan had to do to get astronauts Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams & 2 others out of the SpaceX Dagon capsule around 18:00 local onTuesday March 18th. Everything described is copy/pasted from the Space-Offshore.com site but if anyone has better info or firsthand account please correct. According to SpaceOffshore, it took countless hours of practice before they actually recovered a capsule.
"Following the splashdown of a Dragon capsule, recovery teams in small fast-approach boats connect lines, deployed from Megan, will start to work around Dragon. First checking for safety checks for the presence of hypergolics and crew welfare. Once those checks are complete the capsule is rigged to allow it to be hoisted onto Megan. NASA requires SpaceX to egress astronauts from Dragon within 60 minutes of splashdown. Whilst the Dragon recovery operation is ongoing, other fast boats work to collect up the parachutes from the ocean surface and haul those onboard.
Once Dragon has been raised onto the recovery ship, astronauts are helped to exit the capsule and taken to the onboard medical facility for checkouts. A helicopter will then land on the vessel to take them back to land. For Cargo Dragon operations, a helicopter is also used to take time-sensitive cargo back to Kennedy Space Center as fast as possible."
Dang it. It was all for nothing.
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Before and after pictures of the MV Mega (ex Go Searcher, ex Harvey Otter, originally CALLAIS SEARCHER):
Source: BalticShipping.com
PS> Built 2010?? Looks much like the early OSVs built in the early 1970s
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I was surprised by that 2010 built date as well. I remember those Abdon Callais Offshore boats from the '90’s & early 2000’s. They were masters at building large, inexpensive, supposedly good quality boats all under the 100T license requirements. The ACO shipyard was as narrow as some big box store parking lots & could consistently turn out boats in less than a year with a small workforce. I assume this one was one of the last of that class built before being bought by Harvey? Considering the high profile client & short term passengers, I hope the accommodation are more than comfortable on that mini-ship. Cool operation.
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I was Captain on a Thoma-Sea built 220ft DP2 mud boat for Aries (870 some GT/1658GRT), and an Abdon Callais boat rafted off outside of us up Old Fourchon. In talking with the Captain, he asked me to guess how much his boat measured…he was a good 20+ ft longer than us and almost as wide…it “measured” at 87 GT; they had some good architects and lawyers designing those!
They couldn’t carry fuel as cargo and ran with two 100T Masters and two deckhands…amazing. We were running a Captain, two mates, three ABs, a C/E and a licensed A/E.
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Yep, I remember at the time, working for ACO’s competitors & being pro-labor, I had some animosity at Abdon Callais for building those insanely inexpensive boats with bare bones crewing requirements. In hindsight, they were filling a niche & perhaps assisting staving off those trying to sink the Jones Act & replace American mariners with cheap F.O.C crews? Good for them. Also, I read SpaceX didn’t turn a profit until 2023, lost $500M in '22, $1 billion in '21 while being founded in 2002. Having the former Abdon Callais, bare bones Megan & Shannon sitting around idled for bad weather & between recoveries the majority of the year was great for the bottom line. Definitely better than having a 3rd world foreign F.O.C ship on standby on the Yucatan or some JA waiver ship. I’m glad it’s American mariners fishing these astronauts up after their splash downs.
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The absurdity of the anachronistic and loophole-ridden tonnage rules.
Tonnage has nothing to do with actual vessel size.
Another fine example of USCG misregulation and incompetence.
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Space X will soon turn a massive profit with their new US government contracts worth billions.
SpaceX finally turned a profit in 2024. With Boeings Starliner failures, that won the NASA contract 10 years ago that was twice as much as SpaceX’s bid, SpaceX rescue mission last week almost guarantees SpaceX future dominance in aerospace. As long as they don’t have any fatalities too soon of course. For the US government to go with the higher bidder & be rescued by the lower shines terribly on NASA & Boeing. Also, my ship has been using Starlink which is a SpaceX subsidiary for the last 6 months & by far it’s the best at sea internet I’ve ever had. Amazing. I would guess I used maybe a half dozen different services over the years & this at sea Starlink is as good as most of my landlines I had depending on the time of night I’m using it & how many others are online. Whatever SpaceX & Starlink are doing, they’re doing it right imo! I’d invest in these 2 companies if they were public. But unfortunately, with Boeing being a giant player in the US’s military industrial complex & the history of their foes & whistleblowers mysteriously dieing, I wouldn’t be surprised if SpaceX has a major accident or some fatalities sometime soon.
https://www.npr.org/2024/08/27/nx-s1-5086709/boeing-starliner-spacex-space-future
I know some of the people working for their marine department were given stock in Space X as part of their compensation but as it is privately held it’s of little value to them currently. It’s reported to be worth about $190/share but as its private you need permission to sell and you have no information about the finances of the company so it’s like a pig in a poke as my grandfather used to say. They have a problem keeping people on their boats so you could roll the dice get a job there and see how it works out. 
Speaking from experience, the folks calling the shots over there are usually younger guys fresh out of school. Very intelligent folks, but kinda like the cast of the big bang theory but not funny.
From the boat crew perspective its an uphill battle maintaining tact while doing things safely, and not interfering with/delaying the operation.
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That’s kinda the gist of what I got from one highly qualified person who worked there. Young guys who appeared bright but clueless about how to run a marine operation. [Reminds me of stories about the Musketeers invading the government] Then came request that work had to be done even though off was the deal breaker. They didn’t get that mariners work to live not live to serve Elon.
I love those Awesome Blossoms & Blooming Onions from Chili’s & Outback but I ain’t filling out no applications that’s for sure. 
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