Walk-a-bout at work with a camera. No more off shore for me.

[callmejoe]

Very different from I do.
Very interesting. Cheers

[DaveR]

Nice work! I spent over 10 years offshore in Seismic Survey. Was great fun. The last boat I rode on:




Wazza.

Hi Wazza, that Seismic caper is very interesting stuff. I've been of various vessels when you guys have shown up with boxes of trick-a-logics. It is always impressive toys alright.

[DaveR]

Great thread Dave. I would assume the divers are on good coin but does that job have a high turnover ( of divers ). i wonder whether breathing and living in the those conditions ultimately is bad for your health (and sanity) or do you get in , make some dollars and then get out and do some " normal " diving work - what ever that is .
Raider

Ultimately it is the money which attracts the guys to do the saturation diving.
Surprisingly, it is good for your health being a diver, typicaly the diaphragm must work harder to breath, which has an apparent knock on effect for you other organs and stomach muscles, and then health. there are no over weight divers getting around.
As for state of mind, we're all nut cases for being here in the first place, but trust me, you good folk wouldn't want us types in the typical work place.... 

OH, yes, the Ladies, there are a few Ladies who dive, with the guys in the chambers.
BUT. there are a few problems with this, these are:
1. Cameras, everywhere. Privicay is little, it is worse than that big brother rubbish.
2. Being outnumbered by guys in a small tin can, not many ladies are happy with that.
3. The guys, the conversations inside the tin can are now ..... umm.... well, restricted. (Its alright guys, I wont let the secret mens business out)
4. Strength, as i showed, the guys now are lifting 50 kilo bolts and working with them, by hand. many tasks that are done required a lot of strength and importantly, the knowledge of how to apply that strength. there are many guys who can't do the work also.
5. The big problem I have found with having the ladies upon a ship is the women at home, they always seem to think that all us guys a queuing up for a bit of what ever, so at the moment, there are 2 x women on board, and 112 (I think) guys. These are both decent and respectable folk who happen to be women. There are many women who join a ship in the best friday night stepping out shrink wrapped cut of gear, they typically get sent home for causing no end of trouble. Causing trouble, yes, for dressing in such a way.

[DaveR]

Dave thanks so much for sharing that info with us and the pics are fantastic, so is your rotation six weeks on the ship and then how many off the ship? Have you ever been a diver and then went into the role you have now? I can imagine it takes a lot to keep it all going. Thanks again

I have equal time off, but in that time is the travel days, It takes about 36 hours to get home from the nth sea on average.
I was a diver, but chose to not be a Saturation Diver, I did the more shallow surface diving instead. I worked in Sydney harbour for a long time, spent 4 month below the opera house on a concreting job. yep, concreting under water, makes the form work interesting due to timber wanting to float.
I'm a mechanic turned vessel engineer, then diver, then dive systems technician.

[DaveR]

Got time for a short 1 now.
This drawing represents the chamber layout in Plan View. it shows the compartments and the volumes for the chambers.
The numbers are the door numbers. Doors 7 and 22 are what is called equipment locks, this is where the diving suits and such things are passed into the divers as these locks are bigger then the small medical Locks which are for the food runs.
Total system floodable volume is 145 m3. Knowing the volumes is important as is effects the quantity of gas required to be kept in storage.

[raider]

I have equal time off, but in that time is the travel days, It takes about 36 hours to get home from the nth sea on average.
I was a diver, but chose to not be a Saturation Diver, I did the more shallow surface diving instead. I worked in Sydney harbour for a long time, spent 4 month below the opera house on a concreting job. yep, concreting under water, makes the form work interesting due to timber wanting to float.
I'm a mechanic turned vessel engineer, then diver, then dive systems technician.

Bloody Hell , the North Sea ! Here I was thinking you were doing this off the coast of Australia somewhere and not reputably in one of the wildest places in the world.

[DaveR]

When I stepped outside before shift I was in time to see this.



It is the only time any of like the horrible things as it did this.....
But sadly left me behind.



Just got asked today if I would mind heading off to Singapore in the new week for a week prior to going home. As we need the money, looks like a week in Singers coming up. 

[DaveR]

Bloody Hell , the North Sea ! Here I was thinking you were doing this off the coast of Australia somewhere and not reputably in one of the wildest places in the world.

It can be wild here alright,but we have just had about 4 weeks of warm and calm conditions. It seems the pommes had them selves a nice 4 week summer.... 

[DaveR]

A bit more trivia to share.
The breath gas the diver breath is a mixture of helium and oxygen.
Oxygen is easy to find, Helium is not, so this is recycled as must as possible.
Gas from the chambers that is exhausted is captured in a large 50 m3 bag. The when full, a compressor cuts in and pumps this gas via special filters into the high pressure storage gas tubes.
Here is the bag, shown completely deflated.



Here is the filters it is pumped through at high pressure, the silver cylinders. The filters are multi layer types, for removing a lot of contaminates and moisture so that the gas is dry.

[oldmate]

This stuff is cool, and I'd like to meet the guy that said, hey we need to recycle someone's breath, then meet the guy that said, yep no drama bloke I'll knock this up. Should work. Lol

[lino6]

I saw a documentary on this sort of thing ages ago. Fascinating stuff. I especially like hearing the divers talking like chipmunks on the helium/oxygen! But the whole process was, to me, an interesting process.

Thanks for sharing. I have a long list of "things I'd like to try but never will" and I have this sort of diving on it, somewhere below ice road trucking!

[Homer_Jay]

This stuff is cool, and I'd like to meet the guy that said, hey we need to recycle someone's breath, then meet the guy that said, yep no drama bloke I'll knock this up. Should work. Lol

Then the bloke who said 'yeah, I am happy to be first to try it'

Awesome post! Makes my job seem very very boring.
What trust these guys have in the engineering and the other workmates.

Thanks for sharing!

[martz8]

that is really cool. Thanks for sharing.

Marty

[evolution]

Hi Dave,

Been meaning to say thanks for giving us an insight into what you do for a living.
What an amazing job, I am sure it is incredibly tough at times and by no means easy to do for a living.
In saying that what a view to wake up to!

Just a quick question, I am presuming that the divers "live" in the chambers due to the depths that they work in?
Is this so they don't have to adjust to the pressure every time they dive? (as I understand that at those depths going down and coming back up safely is a long process if you have to depressurize)

Cheers
Evo

[deepop]

Thanks Dave,

Very, very interesting.   Obviously not a regular 9 to 5 on board.   Different lifestyle to most.   Thanks for the insight.

[DaveR]

This stuff is cool, and I'd like to meet the guy that said, hey we need to recycle someone's breath, then meet the guy that said, yep no drama bloke I'll knock this up. Should work. Lol

His name was Krasburg, he made the first divers gas recovery system and was first used on the recovery of the gold from the Royal Naval Ship Edinburgh which sank in the Baltic sea during WWII. A salvage hunter found the ship and as it was deeper and more remote then usual diving operations, consumption of breathing gas was going to prevent the gold salvage from going ahead.
In steps a guy with an idea.....

As I am sure you all know, a SCUBA diver breaths out and this gas becomes bubbles which float to the surface.
No bubbles here, if there are, something is amiss.
The helmets have a recovery system, and a set of filters, gas pump, more filters and scrubbers are used to recycle the gas, it is a different set up to what is pictured above which is for the chamber gas.
This is the system Mr Krasburg invented.

By the way, the helmet weight is about 18 kilos. Even has weights added to it. Why? Well, it is just an up turned bucket of gas, which when under water, wants to float, we need it to be neutrally buoyant when under water and on the divers head.

[DaveR]

Just a quick question, I am presuming that the divers "live" in the chambers due to the depths that they work in?
Is this so they don't have to adjust to the pressure every time they dive? (as I understand that at those depths going down and coming back up safely is a long process if you have to depressurize)

The storage depth does not change, it stays at the same pressure.
If you think to when you drive up a hill and your ears pop, this is due to the reduced atmospheric pressure. Children typically have trouble with this in a plane on approach for landing. It is due to clearing the Eustachian tube behind the sinuses.

For the divers living under pressure, any change in that pressure is noticed, they are the first to notice of there is a small leak in the system.
When the work period is over, they transfer from the living chamber to a decompression chamber. Looking at the drawing above, the living chambers are DDC1 and 4, the other 2 chambers are for decompression.
The time for decompression varies, but it is about 30 meter per day + 24 hours. For us at the moment, about 2 and a 1/4 days. The time they are in the living chamber, the depth does not change.
A diver locks in, does about 26 days work, then a few days deco, then freedom and home.
Us techs don't see the insides of the chambers very often, chamber 1 and 4 plus the Hyperbaric life boats have been down at depth for many months now. Few more to go to as we think that this current project will roll into another.

[raider]

His name was Krasburg, he made the first divers gas recovery system and was first used on the recovery of the gold from the Royal Naval Ship Edinburgh which sank in the Baltic sea during WWII. A salvage hunter found the ship and as it was deeper and more remote then usual diving operations, consumption of breathing gas was going to prevent the gold salvage from going ahead.
In steps a guy with an idea.....






Before Bob Ballard's time then LOL. He now has stuff that can pluck that out of the depths.

[DaveR]

Just had to google who Bob Ballard is, I assume out of the several answers google gave it is a guy who did something for the US Navy.
Aha, and something with the Titanic, got it.

[DaveR]

I got some screen grabs of the divers in action.
it is from some older black box recordings i found on the ships network.
The black box is something which records all activities with the divers in the water, both audio and visual.

Here is a pic of the Bellman getting a diver ready for his swim, the photo is from the camera mounted at the top of the bell which looks down.



Now the diver is below the bell sitting on the bell guide weight, he is about to join the 1st diver on the sea bed below by following his umbilical. the guide weight, white frame, is a device which is on a different winch wire and is the back up means to recover the bell should there be something wrong with the primary means of recovery. The divers swim through this to go to work.



Here is a pic from 1 divers camera of the other diver.
They are wearing yellow protective suits over the wetsuits, it is a disposable thing which is removed before going back into the bell. The idea is to keep from bringing oil, mud or other debris inside the bell.





This mission of the divers on this day was to recover a broken ROV which sunk to the sea bed. An ROv is a remote Opperated Vehicle, a robot which we have on board that helps with many tasks, mostly to look for things as it can see with many forms including sonar.

Here they find the ROV.



Now 1 of the guys is lying onto trying to hook up a crane so it can be recovered to surface.



Now they are looking up back toward the diving bell. The other lights in the distance may be the other diving bell also.



Now the 2 divers are back below the bell getting ready to climb back in, he is looking at the contents gauge which displays the pressure in the cylinder he wears on his back which is know as a "Bail out Cylinder", meaning, it is the reserve gas supply the diver carries around with him.



Shall try for more action shots later.

[raider]

Just had to google who Bob Ballard is, I assume out of the several answers google gave it is a guy who did something for the US Navy.
Aha, and something with the Titanic, got it.

Yeah that's him. He basically stays at home now in the US and controls everything from there. His set up is unbelievable and he watches everything basically in "real time " , even across the globe.

Does it ever go pear shaped for you blokes or are you that prepared that you see off any mishaps with the systems you have in place ?
Raider

[Pipeliner]

When we put a pipeline across the Spencer Gulf (max depth 20m and most less than that) the divers just free dived with air supplied by a surface hose and decompressed on the way up when necessary - we had a decompression chamber on site for emergencies.  You are talking about divers working in 38m and needing He/O mix and doing saturation diving - at what sort of depth do you need to change from free diving to saturation diving?

[bentnose]

well done very interesting stuff. gotta admire some occupations. man eating sharks and squid the size of 747 jumbos lurk in these depths

[sol]

Awesome pics and read mate
Makes my job look like playing with Lego 

       

[DaveR]

When we put a pipeline across the Spencer Gulf (max depth 20m and most less than that) the divers just free dived with air supplied by a surface hose and decompressed on the way up when necessary - we had a decompression chamber on site for emergencies.  You are talking about divers working in 38m and needing He/O mix and doing saturation diving - at what sort of depth do you need to change from free diving to saturation diving?

It is not decided by a depth as such more along the lines of time in the water required for the job.
You may remember the in water time for the divers (Surface Supplied Divers) on the project was limited by decompression tables.
For example, at 20 meters, they may have had just 40 mins for work duties each before having to surface.
Saturation divers can dive that shallow and are only restricted by the working hours of the day. This project we're on now had the divers at about 17 meters for a few dives which brings a new set of problems. More on that below.
If the job required 2 blokes, 24 hours of the day to perform the duties, you would spend the money have have a circus such as ours show up.
The cost may blow out a bit, from a few $1,000 per day, to close to $300,000 per day, but we'd get the work done more quickly.

A big problem for us having the divers so shallow. Well, the vessel is kept in place by propellers, lots of them, and they are BIG.  It pays to keep well away from them.
The length of umbilical allowed for the diver is restricted depending how shallow they are, so the more shallow the dive, the shorter the umbilical.