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35 Days
e iMf of MexHciL Pt I
Tough Duty on a Deep Water Oil Rig
B| 1990 or 1991,1 can't remember which, I worked
||M five very long weeks on the Discoverer Seven
I H IK 3 dynamically positioned deep water drill
Oil ing ship doing exploratory work in the Gulf of
Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. That rig is now owned by
Transocean; a sister rig to the Deepwater Horizon.
I've seen the videos: the oil spewing from the seabed; the
person in a johnboat dragging a blue dish-gloved hand through
still coastal water, the glove coated with oil; the distressed
birds. The management-worker culture that helped produce this
disaster is something I barely understood when I briefly and
peripherally became part of it. I always felt that culture was
as foreign and opaque to the other inhabitants of the rig as it
was to me. The recent news that Transocean had a very quick
meeting at their headquarters in Zug, Switzerland to distribute
$1 billion in dividends shortly after the oil spill disaster began
strengthens my feeling that the corporate boardroom is a world
away from the rig workers and the people who live on the
shore of the Gulf. Transocean filed a "Complaint And Petition
For Exoneration From Or Limitation Of Liability' in U.S. District
Court on May 13, 24 days after the explosion.
Most of the rig men, at least the other painters, compared
their situation (rotating 12 hour shifts for 21 days straight)
to being in the military or being in
prison. Try putting an incomprehensi
bly complex piece of machinery with a
somewhat obscure purpose in the middle
of the ocean; populate it with men from
Ethiopia, Vietnam, Norway, India, Great
Britain, New Orleans, South Texas, North
Georgia and who knows where else, then
add a layer of corporate secrecy: wait
and see what happens. I've read stories
about how callous oil companies are
towards people in failed states and in
places where governments are easily
controlled. I can't help thinking that our
government has failed or is easily con
trolled as well at least in this instance.
boots, and two or three pairs of coveralls—like a summer camp
letter, but serious. I gathered the things I needed, put them
in a duffel bag, kissed my wife goodbye and drove my raggedy
Isuzu from Rome, GA to Venice, LA. I parked at a helicopter
terminal (there are about eight or so listed in Venice currently)
down at the gravelly end of a road »n a place no vacationer
would ever go. Looking at the flimsy paneled walls of the wait
ing area, knowing that soon I'd be on a helicopter flying out
to a ship miles from the shore. I distinctly remember hearing
one man greet another, saying. 'Why. you old oilfield trash! I
haven't seen you since...' and then a description of some rig
in some place I'd never heard of, doing some job I couldn't
conceptualize.
I was taking the first helicopter trip of my life, a one-hour
flight out into the Gulf of Mexico. We stopped at one or
two jackup rigs on the way to drop men and mail. When
I finally disembarked on the Discoverer Seven Seas' helicopter
deck it was a beautiful day. but I was overwhelmed by the
roaring of diesel engines and I noticed the tarry specks from
the stacks everywhere. Alvin, the ship's bosun, was soon giving
us a tour of our quarters, the decks and the dark, noisy bowels
of the ship. I learned his ambition was to own a junkyard back
I was hired on as a painter, the
entry-level position on the rigs.
Steve, a friend, neighbor and then-
chief engineer of the Discoverer Seven
Seas, told me I'd have opportunities
to move up quickly. If I paid attention
and learned fast I could impress the
roughnecks, roustabouts, tool pushers
and drillers. I'd be making all kinds of
money in no time. When Steve and I
were on the rig together, conversing over
a borrowed Stanley Hicks banjo, he told
me I was the only person he knew from g
outside the drilling world who had ever *
taken him up on his offer to try working §
in the Gulf. 5
To me, Steve seemed to have a
purposeful life which was still full of freedom. He was gone
half the time, but when he was at home he did exactly as he
pleased. He drank the best coffee in the'morning and whiskey
in the evening. He took long bike rides around town. Steve had
enough money to Rve well enough to support himself and his
wife. I wanted the same. I had tried a few jobs and ideas for
making money that hadn't quite worked out. Steve gave me an
address and phone number and said he'd put in a word for me.
I drove to the corporate office of Sonat, the company that
owned the rig, in Birmingham, Al for an interview. I remember
the man was almost apologetic when he said, "I can't offer you .
anything but ^painter's position.* I took it because I believed
there was a big need for workers. I could move up because I
was smart and could catch on to things quickly. Also, } needed
a job any job.
I soon received a letter from Sonat instructing me to bring
a Mine Safety Administration-certified hard hat a good pair of
do with drilling—they reminded me of lifeguard stands. Grit
blasting is like sand blasting, but everything is bigger The
blasting hose is like a fire hose, and it takes more than one
man to run it. Piles and piles of grit must be shoveled into
plastic buckets and poured into huge bags, which are loaded
onto service boats to be taken to shore. The kid hit me with a
stream from the grit blaster, through the protective overpants
he had ripped earlier when he carelessly ran his boot through
them. My Carhartts didn't fail me, but that hit smarted. When
we were alt shoveling up the grit later, this kid threatened to
hit Jamie in the head with a shovel. He went to see Captain
Suman and was on a helicopter within a few hours. There was
zero tolerance for fighting: we were told that anyone caught
fighting would be arrested by the Coast Guard and probably
spend some time in jail.
T he dynamically positioned Discoverer Seven Seas, cur
rently working in the Indian Ocean, once held drilling
records for the well deepest beneath the surface of the
water and the well deepest beneath the seabed. 'Dynamically
positioned* means that the ship is not anchored over the well
it's drilling—instead, it uses the ship's propeller and a series
of horizontal thrusters to keep it positioned over the hole. The
thrusters are horizontal propellers which
look like huge window fans. They are
lowered into the water from huge bays
fore and aft. The bays over the deployed
thrusters are like seawater wells of
death—you never want to fall into one
of those. The Deepwater Horizon was
also dynamically positioned; I don't
think there's any other way to drill wells
so deep beneath the ocean surface.
When I boarded her, the Discoverer
Seven Seas was owned by Sonat
Offshore. In May 1996, Sonat Offshore
merged with the Norwegian company
Transocean ASA to form Transocean
Offshore, the company we've come to
know through recent news reports.
Di
10 ? nAGPOLE.COM • JUNE 23,2010
in Kentucky. I liked him. The phrase I heard him utter the most
in the weeks I knew him was 'stop fuckin' around.*
During our orientation as painters, Alvin showed us the
paint locker, the place wt*re all the paint thinner and resins
were kept. If the temperature inside the paint locker exceeded
a certain threshold the vents would automatically dose, and
the locker would be filled immediately with baton gas. We were
informed that if we were trapped inside when that happened,
we would die.
I remember' many characters from the rig, but I can't
remember exactly who was on that first helicopter ride. I
think there was an 18-year-old kid who later was sent* way
from the rig after insulting Jamie, a fellow painter—-a man
anyone with any sense would never mess with. The kid was
a terrible worker. We were in a crew on the riser deck (where
riser pipe is stored when it's not in the hole), and we were
grit Wasting some bolt-on platforms that had something to
' S' * h
uring the drive down to Venice,
the second time I went out to
the rig, Steve told me about an
accident which had happened a week
or two before I came to the rig the first
time. A man I never met had been work
ing with or working dose to a huge air
valve, and the valve exploded. I heard
about the accident from Steve and from
other workers; they talked about it in a
matter-of-fact way. I later got to exam
ine the valve when I was working dose
to it myself. The air system on a rig isn't
like an air system you may have seen
in a body shop or other typical place of
business. The air is under an incredible
amount of pressure, enough pressure to kill you if a stream hits
you. The compressors are huge machines that push pressurized
air all over the rig, air which is used for all kinds of jobs.
I remember hearing that the guy who got hurt was a burly
man—someone who could take almost any kind of punish
ment—and that'r the only reason he lived. The other workers
talked about him, trying to understand what had happened. A
stream of air hit him in the chest when the valve blew up, and
he barely survived. Afterwards he was mostly deaf and perma
nently disabled.
To be continued...
m
WWey
Joe Willey is a musician and web developer who has lived in Athens
(mostly) since 1584.