I was in the maritime industry in those days but not in the offshore sector so my experience with that crash three decades ago is not direct. I am wondering who was working in the offshore back in those terrible bad old days and what your stories are as well as if you see today resembling that earlier calamity of irrational over exuberance?
Went to work there in 87 as an os. I don’t think it was as bad then, although as an os I wasn’t paying attention. But I do remember boats working an people working. It was a different industry then and we had no Internet to discuss things and no 24 news and business channels. The boat companies were obviously smaller and expenses were less. I doubt like today they went for the massive new build orgy, back then new builds seemed rare as did the monster costs. Remember back then a big boat was 220ft and high tech was loran,single sidebar and lines tying the vessel to the rig. Maybe more money involved equalled bigger downturn, I don’t know as I certainly am no expert.
I’d say there was a massive building boom in the late 70’s and early 80’s as there was these past dozen years. How many OSV companies crashed and burned before the 80’s were over? Dozens I am sure and we still haven’t witnessed that same bloodbath…yet. One thing I remember well is the almost daily arrival of ex OSVs only a couple years old in Seattle to be converted to the Alaskan fisheries. One company I worked for in the late 80’s bought 2 PSVs and 3 AHTSs from MarAd for less than a dime on the dollar. One of the AHTSs towed one and another AHTS towed the two PSVs and they ran as a convoy to the NW. I also remember Arctic Alaska Seafoods buying vessels wholesale in the GoM and converting them to trawlers and crabbers.
“ex OSV’s only a couple of years old in Seattle converted to Alaskan fisheries”, Yes, I was on one in 87, the MV Valiant from Offshore Logistics, it went up the to fish.
[QUOTE=Doodlebug;167452]“ex OSV’s only a couple of years old in Seattle converted to Alaskan fisheries”, Yes, I was on one in 87, the MV Valiant from Offshore Logistics, it went up the to fish.[/QUOTE]
I believe there were three sisters that all were purchased by Marine Management for conversions. All are now gone from Alaska now. In fact, there was a time in the early 2000’s when OSVs that had been in the Pacific were going back to the GoM. Amazing how the cycle of boom and bust goes around and around.