Smudger Snippets
Created | Updated Aug 26, 2004
I suppose it's because I have so much time on my hands these days, that all these memories come flooding back to me.
Life Boat Drill
I had, in the past, been to a few of these drills on other rigs when I worked off shore and it always had been the custom just to arrive at the boat and then have your name checked off the list. The boats were the same as the ones you have on those big liners. They had to be lowered down to the water which was usually about 100 feet down, by davits. Like everyone else we never took these exercises all that seriously which, looking back on it now, was wrong but, then again, what happened on the Piper Alfa simply proved the point that the life boats were in fact useless in the event of an explosion.
It had been the first thing I noticed about this rig as we approached it in the helicopter the day before. All the boats were, in fact, laying at an angle towards the water. They stuck out very clearly against the drab background of dirty steel and metal containers that made up the rig itself. Another thing that was totally different to all the other rigs was the fact that all these boats were enclosed. That was when I remembered seeing them before on television a year or so earlier. They were the latest style developed by the Norwegian Oil Industry, that actually were launched into the water from that height. Indeed when I saw the film, they went right under the water on contact before bobbing up again a safe distance away from the rig.
The fact that we were having this drill so close to our arrival was also different. It was then I discovered that this rig was run by Norwegians and that such safety drills were high up on their list of procedures. This was totally different to life on board any other of the rigs that I had worked on in the past, but then again we just had to do what we were told; after all they were responsible for our safety. This fact was made perfectly to any one who questioned their orders, or attempted to make a mockery of the whole exercise.
So you can imagine our surprise when we were all asked to actually climb into this boat by the coxswain who had earlier checked all our names from the list. He climbed to the top of the boat and opened the two hatches then signalled for us all to file up and climb in. Once we were all on board he came down and started to show us how to tie ourselves in with these new safety style harnesses that you see on all these new show rides. Then he went ahead and demonstrated how to tie our heads back with the Velcro strips above us, which we all thought was a bit unnecessary. We soon discovered the reasons for all his preparations when he started to close the hatches and call the control room on the boat radio.
It was only then that the penny dropped with every one of us at the same time as we stared across at each other in total disbelief. There were around fifty of us all with the same look of horror as we stared out of the small front porthole looking straight down at the sea and leaned forward in our seats. A few of the men tried to get off their harnesses - but to no avail as the coxswain explained that they were all locked into position when he pulled the lever earlier. After he had made a few safety checks over the radio with the control room, which we could not understand being spoken in Norwegian, the coxswain put his hand on the launch lever. This we all knew was the launch lever as it was written above it in several languages including English.
I have never known such silence in all my life; it was if the world had stopped spinning. The silence was almost as scary as the potential launch itself. Then with a sudden click that broke the intense silence, we were off, plunging down towards the sea at what seemed like break neck speed. We seemed to float in the air for an eternity before crashing with a loud roaring noise into the sea. When I say into the sea, what I meant was under it as we did, in fact, shoot right below the water. This fact was born out by the fact that all the daylight disappeared from the port hole up front and all we saw was water spinning round it like a washing machine. We then felt ourselves being pointed up the way towards the surface and it was not long before we felt ourselves being thrown back up only to come crashing down yet again.
The reaction to all this was amazing. It varied from cries of pure profanity to some of the men suddenly finding religion! I, myself, have already shared what I thought was my scariest moment in my life in an earlier Snippet but, believe me, this came a very close second! I would go through it again, but only if it meant saving my life in a real situation and the fact that most people pay good money to go through a similar experience at places like Alton Towers beggars belief.
Looking back on it now I do remember a rather sly looking smile on the face of the coxswain as he helped us out of the boat some time later after we had been winched back to the launch ramp. It was satisfying to know that there was at least one man on board that rig who actually took pride and pleasure in his job.
