In August I posted about the
Transocean Winner an oil rig that had run aground on the West Coast of Lewis. It was re-floated a while ago and towed round into Broad Bay.
Yesterday she was floated onto
Hawk. Hawk is a very large
heavy lift ship which can be ballasted down so that huge things to be transported can be floated onto her carrying platform. She then is discharged of ballast and carries her cargo. In this case the plan is for the rig to be carried to Turkey to be broken up.
The number of vessels involved in the operation was considerable:
The story in pictures:
 |
| Oops. Grounded. |
 |
| Hawk: heavy transport ship |
 |
| As Hawk tales on ballast the cargo deck drops below the water |
 |
| The support vessels all in place for the floatover |
 |
| The situation (hopefully) explained |
 |
| The oil rig on the deck of Hawk after she has de-ballasted |
 |
| Closeup |
 |
| Scale |
That is truly amazing ! Thank you for sharing this.
ReplyDeleteHeron it's certainly caused a lot of interest here.
DeleteVery interesting....and so clever !
ReplyDeleteHelsie it does make one wonder who comes up with such ideas.
DeleteGreat explanation and photos of the procedure. It's unbelievable that the rig will be broken up.
ReplyDeleteRed many oil rigs are now coming to the end of their useful life. This one was commissioned in 1983 and has, presumably, had her day. Houston based Transocean has specialized in providing solutions for clients’ drilling programs with rigs that truly stand out (their words). This one certainly has.
DeleteWhat an amazing procedure. I suppose Hawk just hangs about waiting for such an incident. The close-up pix do make her look a bit old; I wonder why she can't be broken up in the UK.
ReplyDeleteCro Hawk was actually supposed to be transporting something else this week (apparently) but was diverted as this was an emergency. There is a fleet of such vessels operated by Offshore Heavy Transport. The capability to break her up certainly exists in the UK. Indeed it would have been possible (in theory at least) to bring her into the Offshore Yard at Stornoway (where a bigger rig was once built) but presumably despite the tens of millions of £s this operation must already have cost it is presumably still cheaper to honour the contract to have her broken up in Turkey.
DeleteMakes International Rescue look like child`s play! (Steve M)
ReplyDeleteIt does indeed Steve.
DeleteImpressive :O
ReplyDeleteI thought so too Monica.
DeleteAmazing. It is just beyond me to imagine how anyone does anything with those things, including getting them standing in the sea in the first place. As you might guess, I am not a natural engineer.
ReplyDeleteJenny the scale of some of these rigs (that's just a small drilling rig and is dwarfed by the production platforms) is completely beyond my comprehension.
DeleteIt is amazing what they can do. This is incredible. Thank you for all the photos and explanations.
ReplyDeleteIt was a pleasure Lynda. What I'm now trying to fathom out is why it's still in Broad Bay and hasn't started its journey whilst the weather is so settled. October can be a month of stormy seas in the North West of Scotland.
DeleteFascinating and impressive! Thank you for giving us such a good explanation of the goings-on.
ReplyDeleteYou're very welcome Meike.
DeleteHoly cats! What an operation!!
ReplyDeleteYes Marcheline and as another fabulous, sunny, windless day starts the Hawk is still sitting in the Bay, immobile. Curious.
DeleteThat's awesome!! I have always wondered how something like that was done.
ReplyDeleteBelieve me I am still in disbelief that that huge rig can be transported by a ship....fascinating technology.
I had to look at your map more closely because I remembered you posted about walking over to where the rig had been grounded to take photos....looks like a long way off on your map.
I don't know anything about scrapping oil rigs but it looks like it could be used again in my humble opinion.
Maybe stabilize it far out to sea and station a few misfits in society far far away from decent folks.
Virginia I didn't walk from home. We drove to a nearby bay and walked over the hills to where the rig was. Your last sentence does have a certain attraction!
DeleteHawk is a fascinating design and ideal for that work. Thanks for the map and photos explaining the procedure. My guess is that environmental laws on breaking up oil rigs, etc. are more strict in the UK than in Turkey, thus costing more in the UK.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that you are correct Terra about the environmental laws and costs. I suspect the former rather than the latter in the event because the additional costs of the delay and operation must have run into many tens of millions of pounds.
Delete