Member Info for adoubleuk

" I'm a frayed knot "

Post of the month, Snail!

SG2

"However, imo the 'eng failures' are systemic and need to be adressed. Hopefully Mr Platt has done so."

Please elaborate. Where do you see 'systemic failure' in Bluewater's operation, which impplies a breakdown of some aspect(s) of their approach to the work? I agree that if that should be the case, Hurricane's Operations Director may have had to become more closely involved. But meanwhile the hookup and commissioning to FoiL remains strictly Bluewater's job.

DC,

"So its back to watching paint dry or idle discussion about camels. We could discuss camels that you set fire to and whether they need filtering. Personally I prefer camels with wings."

I like idle discussion! And personally have a preference for the ones you set fire to, of the filtered variety. They're more trustworthy than the sort that chases people round cars.

Wessex (& Joe),

"how far above the hull bottom of the ship does the top of the buoy protrude into the turret?"

For those intent on pursuing this line of inquiry, the answer to that can be found on page 3-19 of the environmental statement, where there is the best drawing available (or at least that I've been able to find) of the turret / buoy system. From that, it would appear that the turret's 'latch deck' is at the same level as the waterline mark, wher the blue extenal hull paint meets the red. Which makes sense. This means that during the pull-in operation, with the boat riding high as she is, a certain amount of the buoy's cone is in air, ie above current water level within the turret moonpool.

I suppose one could go to another picture and figure out (by counting the draft marks) where that level is, relative to the latch deck, but I can't be bothered!

Wellwell,

"They rotate the turret as required I suspect."

I very much hope that was a tongue-in-cheek satirical comment aimed at someone else.

If it wasn't, well I give up.

SG2

"Just for the laugh, some years back i was asked/tasked to come up with a solution for a dry-dock superliner-build in a European yard; the displacement was gruesome and....."

I see we're on the same sort of wavelength.

Try this for size (though I wasn't personally there, but trust the person who did it 100%).

Semisub. 20" casing run, gets stuck before reaching bottom. Bigtime stuck. Pull to max, can't shift it up. (This is Persian Gulf, calm conditions.)

Last-ditch try.... Ballast the rig down as far as poss so the block's in the highest position possible, cutting down 'stretch' (minimal) in the drilling-line, lock the compensator, and ballast up. With someone's jacket thrown over the weight indicator.

The only reason that rig sup't didn't get the sack is that he got the casing free... It's the same principle as weightlifters use.

As I say, I have no reason to disbelieve that story.

JayKay,

So the concensus is 'blame it on the squid'?

I wonder what Lloyd's will say when the claim is presented?

SiPP,

"I just heaved."

Not surprising if you've just eaten a paella containing giant squid, far from the sea as you are.

Wulbert,

Sorry, ommitted to read your post fully.

"I'm just trying to get a feel for whether the buoy's chains could ever be at full stretch, or anywhere near it, during hook up?"

In a nutshell, no.

No, scrap that. 150m into the air...

Wulbert,

"If one were able to lift the buoy vertically, right up to the sea's surface and then into the air, at what point would the buoy's anchor chains become taught?"

I guess your predictive text kicked-in then, and you meant 'taut' !

Now of course that's a totally hypothetical question, so let's treat it as such. Firstly, you'd have to find some lifting-device, and a helicopter won't do the trick. Maybe a great big airship / balloon sort of thing, such as doesn't exist. And that's also assuming they could find a strong enough rope,as well! Maybe the thing could be done with Ellon Musk's Effin' Big Rocket, but I doubt it.

At a strictly rough guess, back-of-the-fag-packet calculation, I reckon you'd have to haul the thing a minimum of 300 metres into the air before everything went tight.

But there's a problem. The flowline risers wouldn't reach that far, so would probably prevernt the whole kaboodle getting to full stretch, and thus the rope might break even so.

(Though that's given me a new idea about how the load might be reduced on the next hookup attempt. Displace the risers to nitrogen. Might not make a lot of difference, but every little helps. Maybe I should send this idea to Bluewater. Though I most likely won't.)

Cebo,

"What next - maybe it was ... caught up by a Chinese Sub working for CNOOC."

Why use a sub? (Though it's not impossible.) What about those mysterious anonymous 'tugs and special craft' we keep seeing lurking around 'our' patch? They might have been deploying ROV's attaching big bmocks of lead to the buoy's mooring-lines, to make the thing heavier and cause the rope to fail.

And given those vessels' anonymity, they could indeed be Chinese. Or Russian.

Or come to think of it, they could be doing such dastardly deeds having been chartered by the SNP. In whose interest it may be to delay FoiL until after March 29th.

The Rona Ridge discoveries have been described as 'potentially strategic' in the past, after all.

In fact, if sabotage is involved, don't forget Donald Trump, or the Saudis. It would be in both their interests to not see an upswell in production from WoS.

You don't know who to trust these days...

DC,

"" There are three anchoring points on the buoy"

Though in that, I believe you're wrong. Not 100% sure, just 99%. That being, there are 12 'mooring points'. Each chain of the three 'bundles' leads to an individual wire, leading to and individua point on the buoy.

Which of course makes my hypothetical 'lift a bit of the catenary' idea yet more implausable and daft. Hey-ho! Just a wayward idea, without thinking the whole thing through properly.

DC,

" There are three anchoring points on the buoy and aduk is proposing three AHTS’s. Think about it."

Go to the top of the class!

WW,

"What good is connecting ahtv’s to the buoy going to do other than cause more problems? Same for trying to lift the catenary."

Slowcoach. Of course not the buoy. But if there's been a micalculation about the loads involved, one (totally hypothetical) way of getting around that might be to 'lighten' the catenary by picking it up a bit at the appropriate moment.

But of course, that would be a logistical nightmare, and very 'seazt of the pants' experimentation, and there's no way I actually see it happening!

But what does rather amuse and entertain me is that I'm not alone in wondering what's going on, and thinking about possibilities in a semi-informed technical way! Keeps the ol' brain cells active...

And I don't think they'll ballast down lower on the next try.

Of course, there are other possibilities. Like enlisting the help of the giant squid to assist in pushing her buoy-friend into place, in exchange for unlimited visiting rights...

fitguy5,

"The obvious conclusion is that as the lifting system/rope cannot easily be uprated THEN the only way to add a safety factor so it doesn't happen again is to REDUCE the hookup conditions, that is sea state and heave limits!"

That's not the ONLY way to reduce hookup load conditions. There's another, which has crossed my mind over the last few days. But it would require three AHTS vessels on station to help...

I leave you to figure it out!... :-)

Of one thing I'm convinced and sure. That being, a lot of brainstorming will have been happening, and the next 'attempt' will have been rehearsed and risk-assessed until the pips squeak.

fitguy5

"2) They reused the previous snagged rope, which was not knowingly damaged."

Cross that one off the list! After the 'snagging' incident, the spare rope was used, and a new one (the one we're waiting on) ordered.

This is information direct from HUR IR.

No doubt after the latest incident a further rope has been ordered as yet another spare., though that's supposition on my part.

johnpwh,

"Just getting impatient. I'm a grumpy pensioner. I'm allowed to."

So am I. But this is now a situation where we just have to wait. The shipwatching fraternity has its 'alerts' set, charters being monitored, and so on. Unfortunately we don't know where the rope is being manufactured, otherwise there would probably be a 'spy' recruited there, as well!

Nowt we can do about it.

johnpwh,

"Where the **** is this ******* rope?"

Probably being constructed at the rope-factory...

Albi1,

"Apologies for not replying earlier. Have clearly been herding my 'flock' in my sleep as laid up with some hideous flu thing for last week."

You have my symapathies. I was 'laid low' by the 'flu for most of January...

JiffyBag,

" initially GB was trying to find out what happened to his lady friends money, after she lost £50K to what turned out to be a scam investment"

Yes, that's the 'plot-setter' in the story.

The funny thing is, his lady friend's surname isn't mentioned, and neither is that of the 'investment house' with whom she entrusted her £50,000 (how was that obtained?), nor what the particular investment was, which was supposed to make her money within a month (how much?).

And so one gets sucked in.

Have you checked with Somerset House? (A basic research tool for almost anything.)

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