Same shit, different ship

[Mendip]

^ Yeah, I learnt about the Plimsoll Line during 'O' Level Physics, all about the displacement of water and stuff. Noting to do with geology.

Samuel Plimsoll... Social reformer and divisor of the Plimsoll Line... responsible for saving many mariner's lives.

Many great people come from the Bristol area...

Samuel Plimsoll - Wikipedia

I try to follow every post, I really do. But you’ll have to remind us again…

TLP... Tension Leg Platform.

Basically a semi-sub anchored to the seabed by taut cables.

You are a poor pupil, Willy.




Anyway... the Novovirus continues. The medic has had a busy trip, he's written several posters in between sitting in the massage chair. I think he also organises the movie night.



After finishing the offshore cable route to Heidrun we did a few 'environmental' surveys involving a couple of government marine biologists that joined us last port call. (one of them got all excited about a whale she saw while sailing out through the islands... which turned out to be a rocky outcrop... I don't think she'll be quite so vocal next time she spots a 'whale' . It doesn't fill you with confidence).

The main interest of these biologists was a number of deep water coral reefs we had identified during the route survey.



As usual, the coral mounds (which can be many tens of metres in diameter and 5m plus in height) mainly comprised dead coral after being smacked to fukk by trawling for the past few decades. Greenpeace and their ilk spend so much time castigating the oil industry, who do everything possible to lay pipelines and cables away from coral areas with minimal resulting interference, finance environmental surveys etc etc, while the fishing industry continues to destroy everything in it's path, uncriticised.



But that's not a popular opinion of course.

Anyway, after all of that good stuff we started the nearshore part of the cable route survey, from the Norwegian 12nm limit to landfall. To give some idea of the complexity of these nearshore route surveys off Norway, the proposed route within the 12 mile limit was over 70km long.

Among the first of the islands and subsea rock outcrops the route had to avoid.



And looking back out to sea...



The sea level was 150m lower during the ice age and off the Norwegian coast there are now a myriad of subsea U-shaped valleys and canyons carved out by glaciers in times gone by. We need to find subsea valleys infilled by thick soft sediment along which to lay the cable, which can then be trenched for protection from the trawlers. This has not bee easy to find in this area, much of which hasn't been surveyed before.

The approach to the proposed landfall.



The surface geology reflects conditions subsea.



The shallow water at the end (start) of the route presented difficult conditions for the ROV crew who preferred surveying the route in 350m water depth at Heidrun.

A careful look at this picture...



... showed the ROV just submerged towards the end of the route.



The ROV had to remain around 10m above the seabed to map a sufficient corridor of the seabed. The issue in shallow water is maintaining acoustic navigation from the vessel to ROV. It's way better to have the vehicle below the vessel in deep water.

I'm not sure if these windmills are supposed to provide the power for this new 'power from shore' cable, to transport electricity out to Heidrun which is around 170km out to sea. I wouldn't have thought they'd produce enough power? They certainly weren't going round very fast while we were there.



We were struggling towards the end...



And this was as far as we managed.



From whence we came.



Time to knock it on the head, another survey just about complete. There's just a few 'geo hazard' areas to survey. These areas are prone to subsea landslips along the sides of the canyons, a few hundred metres below the sea surface.



At least the shallow water landfall area is finished.



On Thursday we have a crew change in Kristiansund. This should have been my crew change and I'm already regretting staying on another two weeks because for one reason or another, this job hasn't been very enjoyable at all. But it's my fault of course for being greedy!

On the plus side, my favourite trainee is joining us and I can foresee a bit of 'Troy syndrome' coming on. To be honest, she wouldn't even be age appropriate on Sukhumvit let alone in north-western Europe. But I will pay particular attention to her career development.

If only I was 20 years younger.

OK then... 30 years!

[DrWilly]

You are a poor pupil, Willy

Poor pupil or poor teacha? But thanks for the recap on the TLP.

You’ve not really explained this plimsole line fully yet or how it saved sailors lives. Bear in mind I failed O level physics. One of the reasons I couldn’t become a geological engineer…


Troy Syndrome?

[Shutree]

Poor pupil or poor teacha? But thanks for the recap on the TLP.

You’ve not really explained this plimsole line fully yet or how it saved sailors lives. Bear in mind I failed O level physics. One of the reasons I couldn’t become a geological engineer…


Troy Syndrome?

Plimsoll. Not surprisingly, named for Mr. Plimsoll. The Interwebby is your friend.

Load line (watercraft) - Wikipedia

[Mendip]

^ Thank you kindly, Shutree.

This job of writing an educational thread ain't easy at times.

Plimsoles are what my daughter wears for games lessons.

[Reg Dingle]

Sounds more like.Eddy disorder

[Edmond]

#innocent

how it saved sailors lives.

It doesn't take too much brain power to come to the conclusion that having a line across a floaty vessel thing, where if the water is under it it is safe, over it then it is carrying too much mass and may go sinky-sinky.


Do they need to recalculate it after you step on board Mendy?

[Mendip]

^No, but they do use a special gangway with small steps for when short-arses need to board.

[Edmond]

You gonna come out of retirement Stumpy?

[Molle]

They certainly weren't going round very fast while we were there.

They must give a good breeze when they spin up during hot days, almost like my Hatari

[Mendip]

^ This is Norway, there are no hot days.

Today, middle of June, is 9 degrees.

[Molle]

This is Norway, there are no hot days.

Well, then they are probably not plugged in. Norway saving electricity

[Reg Dingle]

Do they need to recalculate it after you step on board Mendy?

Probably just submerge the ROV when Mendy boards with his spoon collection and full suitcase of tainted dried mango.

[Edmond]

They only still have an ROV because Lufthansa charge more for extra baggage.

[taxexile]

after reading about mendys work with underwater robots, drones and the retrieval of fishhooks, lumps of rock and crisp packets from the seabed, i thought i would post this article.

hey mendy, just imagine the bonuses the crew of the ship that brings this lot up from the deep will trouser!!!


Sunken ship with £16bn of treasure ‘found in Caribbean’
‘Holy grail of shipwrecks’ is believed to be vessel sunk by Royal Navy in 1708

Tim Sigsworth


11 June 2025 7:12am BST


A squadron commanded by Charles Wager

A squadron commanded by Charles Wager sank the ship off the coast of Colombia
For centuries, a £16-billion treasure trove of gold, silver and emeralds was lost beneath the waves of the Caribbean.

But now researchers believe they have identified the “holy grail of shipwrecks”.

The rich treasures of the Spanish galleon San Jose appeared to have been gone forever after they were sunk by the Royal Navy in 1708.

A squadron commanded by Charles Wager, who would go on to serve as the First Lord of the Admiralty, intercepted the treasure fleet near Baru Island, off Cartagena, Colombia, and attacked, detonating its powder magazines and sending it to the seabed.

The treasure was being transported from Peru to Spain to fund the War of the Spanish Succession against Britain and its allies.

Gold and silver coins, pearls and gems, claimed to be worth as much as £16 billion in current prices, sat aboard the San Jose.




Coins found on the wreck under investigation in Colombia

The ship’s sinking dented the Spanish effort in the war, which ended with Britain gaining Gibraltar, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

Academics in Colombia now claim to have confirmed that a wreck found off the South American country’s coast in 2015 is the San Jose.

Using underwater drones, they photographed cargo scattered on and around the wreckage of a ship found on the seafloor near Baru Island in 2015.

Analysis of the images found silver coins – minted in 1707 with the hallmarks of the mint at Lima, Peru – among the wreckage.


Other finds included Chinese porcelain from the Kangxi period (1662-1722) and inscriptions on cannons that dated to 1665.

These finds suggest the wreckage is of a ship that sank in the early 18th century.

“This body of evidence substantiates the identification of the wreck as the San José Galleon, a hypothesis that has been put forward since its initial discovery in 2015,” the academics found.




Coins
Analysis of images found silver coins among the wreckage
“The finding of cobs created in 1707 at the Lima Mint points to a vessel navigating the Tierra Firme route in the early 18th century. The San José Galleon is the only ship that matches these characteristics.

“This find presents a rare opportunity to explore an underwater archaeological site and deepen our understanding of colonial maritime trade and routes.”

The analysis will likely deepen a battle over the legal ownership of the wreckage.

Claims have been made by Colombia, Spain, Peru, indigenous communities in the area, descendants of miners who dug up the treasure, and Glocca Morra, the treasure-hunting firm, which says it found the wreck as far back as 1981.

The San Jose
There will likely be a battle over the legal ownership of the wreckage
Glocca Morra’s new owners, Sea Search Armada, insist that the galleon was found within a mile or two of the coordinates of its 1981 discovery.

The company, which is claiming £7.9 billion, is also challenging a 2020 law that deemed everything on the ship was Colombian government property

The researchers added: “Coins are crucial artefacts for dating and understanding material culture, particularly in shipwreck contexts.

“Hand-struck, irregularly shaped coins – known as cobs in English and macuquinas in Spanish – served as the primary currency in the Americas for more than two centuries.”







The finds follow previous carbon dating analysis of the wreckage that indicated that it was approximately 300 years old.

The ship’s cargo will not be recovered from the seafloor until the wreckage is “fully characterised” using “non-invasive surveys”.

With the galleon lying several hundred metres below the sea surface, it is too deep for human exploration.

The study is published in the journal Antiquity.

[DrWilly]

Plimsoll. Not surprisingly, named for Mr. Plimsoll. The Interwebby is your friend.

Load line (watercraft) - Wikipedia

^ Thank you kindly, Shutree.

This job of writing an educational thread ain't easy at times.

Plimsoles are what my daughter wears for games lessons.

[Mendip]

^^ Fascinating stuff Tax. Everyone's dream is to find a wreck full of treasure.

Over twenty years ago I dabbled with shipwreck hunting and worked on a couple of projects with Sverker Hallstrom, a Singapore-based treasure hunter.

WHO'S WHO

It's a single man's game though... I was working on a no cure, no pay basis for a percentage of the find. You can do that kind of thing when you're single with no responsibilities but it's not so easy to spend a month on a boat, probably with no pay... just in case you hit it big, when you have a family. My job was to operate and interpret the side scan sonar, one of the main tools of the shipwreck hunter.

After a while I put it down to experience and returned to day rate in the oil industry. However to remind of that time, I do have a few lovely pieces of Chinese porcelain from the 17th Century Vung Tau wreck Hallstrom salvaged off Vietnam, and a gold sovereign from the RMS Duoro that he salvaged in the Bay of Biscay. These are still in storage at my mates farm near Perth, I really must visit sometime and pick them up. I haven't had a chance to visit Perth since 2008.


Anyway, tonight I got up for my midnight shift and discovered that our pretty Dutch online surveyor is the latest to go down with the lurgy...



This worries me somewhat as I sat next to her for half an hour yesterday when we started a new project... I really don't want to catch this bug.

We're heading south to Kristiansund for a crew change tomorrow, and off the starboard side just prior to my midnight shift...



And off the port side... Norway has covered it's clifftops and every other available space with these bloody windmills. I'm sure that some time in the future, this period will be looked back on in wonder, 'what were they thinking'?

But it is creating an awful lot of work.



Speaking of work... 2am in my office. The nightshift packed up early in preparation of tomorrow's crew change. They must be exhausted after their two week trip. As usual I am the only geo staying onboard and the only continuity. Still, mustn't grumble... if the staff did their jobs I wouldn't get so much work.



One of the Filipino stewards came around with a tray of ice creams at 3am... like one of those girls at the cinema.

Norway copies everything and these 'Royals' are exactly the same as a Magnum.



Lovely!

[Shutree]

Everyone's dream is to find a wreck full of treasure.

She had that dream. She found a wreck. Unfortunately, no treasure.

[DrWilly]

She had that dream. She found a wreck. Unfortunately, no treasure.

Harsh!

[Mendip]

Everyone's a comedian.

She may have got no treasure, but she struck gold with the crown jewels.

If you know what I mean.

[Bobs yer uncle]

I think everyone's dream is to work on a boat like this, and have Filipinas passing out icecream bars. Must be great fun
Wish I could off done that job

[Edmond]

Wish I could off done

Welcome back BLD.

[Bobs yer uncle]

Oh sorry it's not my first language.

[DrWilly]

Icecreams at 3:00am?

How's the diet going?