Absolutely beautiful read about the life cycle of capitalism and beautiful machines, thanks for posting it!
> I asked him if it ever seemed a pity to break up such monumental and characterful structures. Did he look at Winner in the way that I had come to look at her, in the way her former crew looked at her, as something dignified? Sari said the only emotion he could feel about Winner was relief, when she was gone, on schedule. But not long ago, he acknowledged, he had had a wobble. It was over those two young Ensco rigs – Ensco 6003 and 6004 – that had come out of Brazilian waters. When Sari won the right to scrap them, he took the unusual decision to sail the rigs under their own power from South America to Turkey. “I piloted one myself, for the last mile to Aliaga. I wanted to try it out.” Sari mimed adjusting thrusters, striking buttons. “Everything was like new, all the controls.” They demolished Ensco 6003 and 6004 over the course of about 10 weeks. “Beautiful machines. Beautiful machines,” Sari said.
Afterwards, To get a better appreciation of how dangerous the job of ship breaking actually is, I looked for some videos.
A couple of oil rigs recently sailed past my office a few months ago. On a small break in the park grounds checking how the magpie nest was doing with some colleagues we saw them sneak past.
We were all surprised how fast they went. Not fast fast, but in the space of 10 minutes, or so, could clear several hundred meters; the visual comprehension that something we know can move but should not, is. A contradiction of logic and intuition.
My parents used to own a small condo on a small shipping channel on Lake Michigan. The scale of ships is incredible. There is nothing quite like standing on the fourth floor of a building, and looking at something that is much larger than the building you are in navigating a narrow curve in a river without assistance.
I've lived in Chicago for my entire life, and I often think about how amazing it is that we as people have constructed things as large as skyscrapers and highways. But oceangoing vessels can be just as large, and they move.
Shipbreaking has some similarities with electronics recycling in that it's hard work ideally requiring some significant precautions, but if you forego those precautions and employ hordes of desperate people in a jurisdiction that either doesn't care or is just happy about the jobs, you can get that done half a world away for more bang for your buck.
Then again, in that respect, it has similarities with many other kinds of labor as well.
It's fascinating to see that, though challenging, the owners in this case were persuaded by factors other than just money, and this work was performed at a place that appeared decidedly less dystopian than what you see on the tidal beaches of Southeast Asia.
Great article, though. This is the long-form content I like to read. It informs by painting scenes and portraying moods. It's not just obligatory anecdotes, but prose that takes you there, makes you see an issue through the different players' eyes, and makes you think.
I think that requiring robust safety is the best way to both combat aggressive offshoring and help the environment and prevent the race to the bottom in working conditions.
"The power of habbit" showed that once you got safety pinned down you can expect for it to spill over in other parts of person life.
>I think that requiring robust safety is the best way to both combat aggressive offshoring and help the environment and prevent the race to the bottom in working conditions
As far as I'm aware, this is how the North Sea sector (which has hundreds of rigs that will eventually need decommissioning) is regulated. Environmental and occupational standards are rigorous.
There's a documentary called Workingman's Death about the worst jobs in the world: not in an amusing Mike Rowe way, but jobs that are backbreaking, pay a pittance and regularly kill in horrible ways. And there's no commentary, no soundtrack, just unstaged video footage, ambient sounds, and people talking about their jobs and why they do it.
The other episodes are worth watching too, particularly the Indonesian sulphur mine and the Nigerian butchery. The first of these is also a tourist attraction, and they film tourists doing it for kicks while the workers talk about seeing their friends make a single misstep, fall into a sulphur pit and boil to death in front of their eyes.
And how advanced were the electronic systems on these rigs? I suppose they had to run everything from SCADA through to heating for accommodation blocks?
It depends. Satelite was often a fallback. When they where moored and in operation they would often use microwave-link to a nearby "access point" (another more permanent rig with fiber connection to shore).
And how advanced were the electronic systems on these rigs? I suppose they had to run everything from SCADA through to heating for accommodation blocks?
I only know about the radio and radar systems. I would describe the ones I supported as reasonably simple except for the fact that signals had to pass through a number of networks belonging to our customers, our customers suppliers and even competitors before reaching their destinations.
Did you do software (in the sense you wrote it) and hardware?
Many years ago I trained as an industrial electrician but programming was my first love, eventually moved into software development but I still miss some of the more fun bits of been a sparky.
Did you do software (in the sense you wrote it) and hardware?
No, I didn't write any of this software.
Many years ago I trained as an industrial electrician but programming was my first love, eventually moved into software development but I still miss some of the more fun bits of been a sparky.
I tried to become an electronic engineer but ended up in computer systems. I'm hoping to pick up the arduino together with my children soon though.
Yeah, GF's little boy is showing an interest so I'm thinking simple robots and then if he's still interested something more interesting (I have a big body of water right nearby so thinking ROV).
Michael Glawogger, an Austrian documentary director, who died tragically in a car crash in 2014, made a 2005 documentary partly about Pashtun workers in Pakistan who dismantle ships. The part about the ship-breaking workers starts at about 1:21:10 and lasts about 25 minutes. It's really fascinating - I highly recommend it. The documentary is called "Workingman's Death". Actually, the whole documentary is really good:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478331/
Weird. I distinctly remember at the time that it was reported as a car crash, but everything I can google now agrees with you. Ok, he died from malaria. I also loved his comedy movie "Contact High" (2009). Basically a European stoner movie that IMHO is much better than any of the Cheech and Chong movies!
This is not necessarily true, and all structures must be removed (though the timeframe is flexible).
For some platforms you're absolutely correct; those with gravity-base foundations whose foundations were used for hydrocarbon storage are a technical and environmental nightmare. Unfortunately it's damned if you do, damned it you don't; removing them completely risks catastrophic spillage, leaving it in place also risks damage in decades to come. It was regretfully not well-considered in the wild west days of offshore drilling when many of these concrete-base platforms were installed.
Many (most, but I haven't checked the numbers) other platforms are supported by steel towers, and these did not use their foundations for any sort of chemical storage. By law (in the North Sea at least) when these are removed they must be fully removed. Challenging, but not a considerable environmental risk.
Something I wondered from this, was about the salvage master Sylvia Tervoort:
How the heck does one become a "salvage master"?
I guess it has more to do with the fact that there are a ton of jobs out there that are mostly "unknown" by ordinary people. Maybe it also has to do with location (ie, you're more likely to know about the idea of being a "salvage master" if you live near any place that has such companies as employers).
At the same time I wondered "did she wake up one day and decide to become a salvage master?" - and how do you go about doing that?
There are many jobs like this, all with somewhat obscure titles; some you can see how someone might fall into this line of work (ie - working up the ranks, or horizontal transition from another area, etc) - but others seem like they'd require such a strange set of disparate skills (as is alluded to in the article) that you have to wonder just how one lands that kind of work?
It's not for me (though the idea of world hopping to supervise and assess ships for salvage does have a certain "romantic" appeal - but I know that's a false idea) - but obviously it is for others. How they get such a position, though, is the question in my head...
The BBC had an interesting article about the big Brent platform being removed from its legs (which are being left in place) - this was done by a specially built ship:
If you're interested in more reading in this style, is recommend "Deep Sea and Foreign Going" by Rose George, an account of the modern container shipping industry and the old world of shipping that it replaced, seen through the eyes of the writer as she sails on a container ship.
After reading this article I actually had to check it wasn't by her - both of the authors have a similarly wonderful style of melancholy prose.
Unfortunately these designated places become designated because the labour is cheap, the environmental and health and safety legislation is non-existent at best. The end result is loads of pollution and a high death rate amongst workers, but its cheap so its got that going for it.
> Pule did it, I did it – we do this, as humans, we humanise seacraft. Vessels are christened under bottles of fizz. They’re given nicknames and ascribed character.
I find interesting that by even reading about boats one tends to humanize them but it seems to not happen with planes and cars.
Probably it has to do with the long relations kept by crews and the ships they sail in.
I am a car enthusiast and even I try to keep my cars at arms length, knowing they could (and have been) totalled and whisked away in an evening for no better reason than someone glanced at their phone for too long.
We definitely humanise cars and planes, it's just different due to how we interact with each of them. Early fighter pilots and race car drivers did a lot more hands on maintenance than their modern counterparts and the way they talked about their cars and planes definitely shows they were humanising them.
>>but it seems to not happen with planes and cars.
Sure, most people I know don't care about their cars, it's just a thing they use every day. But go to any car enthusiast meet and they will tell you how their car has its own character(and usually has a name too).
Wouldn't old cheap oil rigs be a great starting point to establish an artificial island (and then, a country) in international waters?
The shallow waters 400km west of Namibia seem like a good spot.
Aside from the fact that it's been tried and has largely failed (see: Principality of Sealand), it isn't a workable idea for a number of technical reasons:
- an old, cheap rig may be nearing the end of (or has surpassed) its fatigue lifetime. Corrosion, subsiding into the soil, etc. are all factors too. It might be outright unsafe to occupy.
- expanding one platform into others or into an artificial island is a monumentally expensive and challenging task; it's not going to happen for some fantastical micronation project.
> expanding one platform into others or into an artificial island is a monumentally expensive and challenging task
Oh, come now, just string up some rope bridges between them and hunker down on your platform when the weather gets choppy. You need to play some Zelda games or watch Waterworld to expand your imagination!
I thought SpaceX could use these as a sea platform for rocket landings. It just might be too cost prohibitive but there definitely seems enough of them around to salvage.
off shore drilling stocks have been great shorts over the past few months. However, they all seem to be over extended to new lows. If oil pops back they could whip back, so be careful.
- going offshore to a rig is not something that's done lightly; often getting there involves a helicopter trip, for which every passenger has had a multiple-day training course (HUET+BOSIET). This training costs a lot, and obviously the helicopter transit costs a lot too. It's also risky.
- these rigs being decommissioned are quite possibly structurally less safe and have not been upgraded or designed with the safety features of more modern rigs
- there's limited accomodation space
Or, if you were suggesting that they might be repurposed once near/ashore:
- there's plenty of existing disused space that could be converted to housing;
- decommissioning often means breaking the rig into pieces to be brought to shore, so the expensive cleaning and reconfiguration necessary to turn it into a shelter might not even be possible with a bunch of rig "chunks"
> I asked him if it ever seemed a pity to break up such monumental and characterful structures. Did he look at Winner in the way that I had come to look at her, in the way her former crew looked at her, as something dignified? Sari said the only emotion he could feel about Winner was relief, when she was gone, on schedule. But not long ago, he acknowledged, he had had a wobble. It was over those two young Ensco rigs – Ensco 6003 and 6004 – that had come out of Brazilian waters. When Sari won the right to scrap them, he took the unusual decision to sail the rigs under their own power from South America to Turkey. “I piloted one myself, for the last mile to Aliaga. I wanted to try it out.” Sari mimed adjusting thrusters, striking buttons. “Everything was like new, all the controls.” They demolished Ensco 6003 and 6004 over the course of about 10 weeks. “Beautiful machines. Beautiful machines,” Sari said.
Afterwards, To get a better appreciation of how dangerous the job of ship breaking actually is, I looked for some videos.
"Scrapped: Chittagong Cutters" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fqrRhqv0Iw
"The Ship Breakers" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdYK2vb6McE