Same shit, different ship

[Joe 90]

Imagine the Size of the haul if mendy had used that extra eight kilos of luggage allowance !!

Missed the boat there mate, pardon the pun.

[Reg Dingle]

Are you wearing the spunk-stained specs already?

I don't need specs mate, I mean with regards to 20/20 vision rather than getting the old pink eye but Im pretty sure there was no seriously strong or Wednesleydale on his 8 mile trek to Asda whilst roaming the ginnels in hope of some Aberdonian crackwhore

[hallelujah]

I don't need specs mate, I mean with regards to 20/20 vision rather than getting the old pink eye but Im pretty sure there was no seriously strong or Wednesleydale on his 8 mile trek to Asda whilst roaming the ginnels in hope of some Aberdonian crackwhore

There's seriously strong right next to the Cathedral City!

Not a massive fan of Wensleydale myself, mind.

The Aberdonian crackwhore sounds alright though.

Btw, if you're gonna be sailing the rivers and canals of England together this summer, take a detour oop norf and have a pint with me and Chitty.

No lamping though, ok?

[Joe 90]

Btw, if you're gonna be sailing the rivers and canals of England together this summer, take a detour oop norf and have a pint with me and Chitty.

They can moor up on Canal Street !

That'll be right oop their alley

[hallelujah]

They can moor up on Canal Street !

That'll be right oop their alley

The lamp is ON!!!

[Joe 90]

I watched that Charlie Vietch video on that canal, bit of an eye opener.
I'm sure they'll have an illuminating time and be guaranteed plenty of cheese..

[baldrick]

all indications seem to indicate that pommyland is full of raging homosexuals

[cyrille]

all indications seem to indicate that pommyland is full of raging homosexuals

And, say, Sydney Australia?

What do the indications indicate [sic.] there?

[david44]

Btw, if you're gonna be sailing the rivers and canals of England together this summer, take a detour oop norf and have a pint with me and Chitty.

No lamping though, ok?

If you lads are allowed in the Shadow of the great Orme late May or Porthmadog yacht Club c May 18 RJ will ring the bell for the sherbert.
Porthmadog Sailing Club: Home


Porthmadog Sailing Clubhttps://www.sailing-club.org


Our sailing club has an active dinghy section, an active cruiser section


PM for rv, condom size and preferred shandy.
I will obtain a UK im on arrival.If not suitably attired (Davycrocket44 coonsskin hat, blazer, cravat, Daks, goatskin trouser, molekin moccasin etc)the fine Moose ales are at source from the nearby 'The Australian' home to bow legged ladies, large scoff and serious pintsmen.

The Welsh Ministry of Rectichewed and Sobriety advises I may only do Lunctime sessions due to 'leeks'

The Australia | Purple Moose Brewery Ltd



Purple Moose Breweryhttps://purplemoose.co.uk › pages › the-australia










The Australia, Porthmadog, is the brewery tap for the town's very own Purple Moose Brewery. We showcase the brewery's excellent range of cask, keg and bottled

[Mendip]

I've been on this damn boat for nearly five weeks now and the God-awful heat and humidity of April in Isaan is now a distant memory... as are the red-raw heat rash across my crotch and my infected left big toenail. Amazingly enough, despite turning black and having gone a bit wobbly, the nail is still attached to my toe and appears to be trying o grow again.

This has so far been the busiest job I've been on in a long while and I'm starting to regret working for a new company for a few extra quid, but things are finally settling down a bit so I thought I'd share a few highlights of this work trip so far...

The obligatory farewell to my pack all those weeks ago... not a great turnout most probably due to the heat (I like o think).



Owing to a mix-up I arrived in Bangkok two days before my flight out, but being a glass half-full kind of person I decided to make the most of it.



A new venue for me, and after a superb late Sunday lunch fish an' chips (with the last portion of peas I've had in weeks)...



... I hit a few bars.

I must admit that I did quite enjoy myself as well!

But all too soon it was Tuesday evening and time to get my work head on.



The next morning I embarked at the CCB base, a few km north of Bergen.



And the Thursday night saw my first nightshift around 180km northwest of Bergen. I've managed to get my favourite midnight to midday shift which is great for keeping in touch with the daughter, being 5am to 5pm Thai time. It also means no jet lag or difficulty getting off nights once I return home as I'm an early riser back in Korat and like an early night these days as well.



This was the full moon before the current one.

[DrWilly]

Glad to see the updates. Five weeks on the boat? I thought it was only two week stretches at a time allowed?

[Mendip]

The first couple of weeks were spent at the Gullfaks field, probably my favourite oil field if I was forced into making a choice.

It's a busy part of the world with the Snorre, Statfjord and Veslefrikk fields close by, and also the world's largest floating windfarm, comprising the grand total of eleven wind turbines which by all accounts produce enough energy in a day to power one of the platforms for a couple of hours. A cynical person would maybe think of greenwashing...

The windfarm is the eleven small bright lights to the left of the Snorre A platform on the right (I think).



And the next day.



Our first task was boulder removal at Gullfaks before the arrival of a drill rig. Despite being discovered over 40 years ago, there are still satellite wells being drilled at Gullfaks to fully exploit the reservoir.

The Askeledden jack-up drill rig was due to arrive at our location in a few weeks, once it had finished at another nearby well. Each new production well requires a subsea template and new flowlines, so creates plenty of new work. I find oil and gas work way more interesting than the renewables work I was doing at the start of the year off the west coast of Scootland.

You don't delay a drill rig, so removing these seabed boulders was a priority.



We also had to do a bit of levelling by removing excess gravel intervention that had previously been in installed on the seabed. That dirty great white-coloured claw excavator thing on the back deck was attached to the ship's crane and used for gravel removal. Next to it was the larger of the two boulder grabbers we were carrying, the smaller one was in use when I took this photo.



And the ship's crane in action with the small boulder grabber on the seabed. Everything is operated by the ROV subsea, and all equipment is designed to be ROV-friendly.



But it's not all about work. I think they must have been expecting me back on this boat as there was a pair of brand new treadmills waiting for me in the gym. Maybe I was running too fast last trip and burnt them out?



After my arrival, every dining table in the mess looked like this.



Yes, that little glass bowl in the middle of the table contained dry chillies from the flower market in Korat!



I always bring over a bag or two which is a great way to get on the nightshift Filipino cook's good side!



The boat must have stocked up on proper British sausages while working off Scotland at the start of the year and the Filipino cook has been keeping a couple aside for me if there are any left over from breakfast. Those chillies certainly pay off cos you can't beat a cold sausage for elevenses, and when you go to the gym every day you can eat what you want!



They certainly beat the Filipino breakfast of stewed tinned sardines which I've become accustomed to. I need to get my cholesterol down and have been eating oily fish whenever possible, along with the occasional sausage of course.

[cyrille]

Strange.

Joe 90 has been telling us that 'oily fish' means 'deep fried'.

[BLD]

The first couple of weeks were spent at the Gullfaks field, probably my favourite oil field if I was forced into making a choice.

It's a busy part of the world with the Snorre, Statfjord and Veslefrikk fields close by, and also the world's largest floating windfarm, comprising the grand total of eleven wind turbines which by all accounts produce enough energy in a day to power one of the platforms for a couple of hours. A cynical person would maybe think of greenwashing...

The windfarm is the eleven small bright lights to the left of the Snorre A platform on the right (I think).



And the next day.



Our first task was boulder removal at Gullfaks before the arrival of a drill rig. Despite being discovered over 40 years ago, there are still satellite wells being drilled at Gullfaks to fully exploit the reservoir.

The Askeledden jack-up drill rig was due to arrive at our location in a few weeks, once it had finished at another nearby well. Each new production well requires a subsea template and new flowlines, so creates plenty of new work. I find oil and gas work way more interesting than the renewables work I was doing at the start of the year off the west coast of Scootland.

You don't delay a drill rig, so removing these seabed boulders was a priority.



We also had to do a bit of levelling by removing excess gravel intervention that had previously been in installed on the seabed. That dirty great white-coloured claw excavator thing on the back deck was attached to the ship's crane and used for gravel removal. Next to it was the larger of the two boulder grabbers we were carrying, the smaller one was in use when I took this photo.



And the ship's crane in action with the small boulder grabber on the seabed. Everything is operated by the ROV subsea, and all equipment is designed to be ROV-friendly.



But it's not all about work. I think they must have been expecting me back on this boat as there was a pair of brand new treadmills waiting for me in the gym. Maybe I was running too fast last trip and burnt them out?



After my arrival, every dining table in the mess looked like this.



Yes, that little glass bowl in the middle of the table contained dry chillies from the flower market in Korat!



I always bring over a bag or two which is a great way to get on the nightshift Filipino cook's good side!



The boat must have stocked up on proper British sausages while working off Scotland at the start of the year and the Filipino cook has been keeping a couple aside for me if there are any left over from breakfast. Those chillies certainly pay off cos you can't beat a cold sausage for elevenses, and when you go to the gym every day you can eat what you want!



They certainly beat the Filipino breakfast of stewed tinned sardines which I've become accustomed to. I need to get my cholesterol down and have been eating oily fish whenever possible, along with the occasional sausage of course.

Them Filipinos have got your back mate. Wonderful people . I probably should of married one.

[cyrille]

Ffs.

[Edmond]

Them Filipinos have got your back mate. Wonderful people . I probably should of married one.

I'm pretty sure that quoting the whole... fokin'... post... is grounds for divorce in the Philippines. As well it fokin' should be.


Good to see ya keepin' well Mendo.

[BLD]

Except there's no divorce in the philippines. Funfact

[BLD]

I quote the whole fookin post coz I'm on a phone with huge fingers us technology challenged. Sheesh..gimme a break eddo . It's not like you've got fuck all better to do ? My sincere apologies for making you scroll to get to the guts of it only to find me telling mendip the flippers are good kunts

[david44]

welcome back to our premier pister, never alone wiv a Jollyist

[Mendip]

Glad to see the updates. Five weeks on the boat? I thought it was only two week stretches at a time allowed?

Four weeks are pretty standard unless you're Norwegian when a 2 on, 2 off, 2 on, 4 off rota is the order of the day. There's a crew change every two weeks on this vessel (due to the Norwegian crew) and I'll be doing a six week trip. It was planned for four weeks but I'm doing an extra two... not always possible in Norway but HSE don't seem to have got their tentacles into this company yet, and long may that last.

The first two weeks were spent picking up boulders at Gullfaks. This is easy work for myself so I had a vested interest in finding a lot of boulders which took a long time to recover... the more boulders I found, the longer we were doing easy work.





Gullfaks at sunrise. I reckon I must have spent around a year of my life at Gullfaks over the past three decades, which is a pretty sobering thought. If ever I get invited onto 'Mastermind' my specialist subject would without doubt be, 'the late glacial and post glacial shallow soil conditions and the infrastructure at the Gullfaks oil and gas field, Norway'. It's a pretty niche subject which I doubt has been done before. My other option would be, 'Two and a Half Men, Season Three', which I am also pretty good at.



The work ROV (WROV) was used to watch and operate the grab subsea, to position the grab to pick up and relocate the boulders...



And at the end of a small campaign, the survey ROV (SROV) would carry out a small survey to see if all was good. We have boulder clay at the seabed across much of the Gullfaks field and when one embedded boulder was removed, others tended to fall into the hole it had left as the sides of the hole collapsed. Never-ending... good work if you can get it.



Pretty typical conditions mid-Norwegian sea during the summer. Thankfully the fog is one reason that helicopter crew changes are rarely planned for these smaller Survey/ROV vessels.



I've been in this bastard gym pretty much every day after shift this trip, and think that I'm finally starting to lose some weight.



Not bad for an old flouncing bloater, or was it a bloated flouncer?



While I was doing my 5km one afternoon, a couple of crew came in and unpacked some sort of a spinning bicycle I think they called it, but it'll be a cold day in hell before I get on one of those things.



After two weeks we went alongside for the first crew change. We used the Haugesund quayside of my previous company which was a bit strange. If my old boat had been alongside at the same time I would have been sorely tempted to jump ship.



The boulder equipment remained onboard as we still had unfinished business at Gullfaks. If you look just right the ship's crane you can just see the top and aft end of a cruise ship with two big blue stacks. They call in at Haugesund as a stop en-route to see the Norwegian fjords. WTF the poor bastards do in Haugesund for an afternoon I have no idea.



This has and will be my cabin for the duration of my six week trip, during which time it's seen a procession of foreigners apart from my good self. A Venezuelan occupied the top bunk for the first two weeks, a Swedish Pakistani came onboard for the second two weeks and currently I am sharing with a Pole. I was awarded the bottom bunk all those weeks ago out of respect... or was it due to my advancing years? Either way, with a bladder as weak as mine I certainly wasn't going to offer to take the top bunk.



And this shows the sorry state of the offshore industry in 2024. The Swedish Pakistani guy came onboard with his luggage packed in this monstrosity... with fucking wheels. Guess what happened as soon as we sailed out after the crew change and hit a bit of weather? I just despair these days. If it wasn't for the strict littering rules I would have chucked the damn thing overboard, preferably with him in it.... he was only a small guy.

[cyrille]

The fact that the food isn't great is more likely to make you lose weight than visits to the gym are.

[Edmond]

Good man Mendo.

Did you notice that your speed and intensity increased while they were in your presence?


Bunking with other big hairy men, are you allowed to use earplugs when sleeping, or it is verboten due to HSE and needing to hear possible alarms etc?

[DrWilly]

Do you not have a personal desk in that cabin? How can you watch porn on your laptop at night?

[bsnub]

Sure is a step down from your other ship where you had your own room. What happened to that ship?