Greetings from the port of Bergen in Norway on an overlook here with a famous mariner and
naval officer behind me whose details I don't have because they didn't write them on the plaque. The
port of Bergen, of course, you will know is famous because the British came here in 1665 and tried to
capture a fleet of Dutch vessels. The interesting thing about this port is that it is just
full chock-a-block with OSV's, PSV's and other service vessels that go out into the North Sea.
We are now in February and obviously they go out all year to service the offshore oil platforms.
And what you learn from studying these vessels a little bit is that they are Norwegian-tough.
They go out in any kind of weather. The terrible weather that ripped across the U.S. and shut down
the Northeast, including where I live in Rhode Island a couple of weeks ago - came through here
with 80 knot winds and a lot of these vessels were out in the field at that point. When we do
our technical tour of the vessel here, they talk a little bit about being on board with 15 meter,
which would be over 50 foot, waves and 80 knot winds. We're going to do our first inspection
of this Ulstein-designed standby vessel - emergency rescue and response vessel (ERRV) which
is at a dock in Merikoven, just outside of Bergen. As you can see the weather changes fast here - so
today our technical tour will be aboard this emergency response and recovery vessel, otherwise
known as standby vessels. This one is called Ocean Tay. It's a Class A standby vessel originally
built in 1992 in Norway at the Brattvaag shipyard and it is part of a class of vessels that are
platform supply vessels designed by Ulstein, also in Norway. The vessel is 63 meters overall,
that's 206 feet, with a 15 meter beam, which is about 50 feet of beam.
The gross tonnage is 1823 tons. She's powered by twin Bergen Rolls-Royce engines that deliver 5000
horsepower on straight shaft drives to constant speed props. That drive her along at 12 knots
while sipping only about 100 gallons of fuel per hour. These 10 meter rescue boats are also built
in Norway by Maritime Partners. These are 32-knot vessels powered by twin Yanmars and Hamilton water
jets. They will automatically right if tossed upside down by a wave. So let's head on board
we'll start on the bridge deck with Chief Officer Don Quinn who's going to give us a technical tour.
The purpose of this vessel was emergency response. This vessel can take 300 casualties in case
there's a multi-evacuation of the platforms. We will be in position to recover the casualties if
they end up in the water. We have enough people on board to man both the daughter crafts and we would
come to their rescue. You have two independent rudders. When we're doing port operations-
a lot of time we split the sticks so we use the engines as well to steer the vessel.
This is a drop down azipod thruster - it can do a 360. You could actually take the boat back into
port with this thruster by itself. If a casualty is in the water with a personal locator beacon,
this will give you a bearing of where the beacon is in relation to the ship.
Your lighting panel. Once we go on location, we're there for 28 days.
And then the only reason we go to port is for provisions, fuel, water and crew change
and then the vessel comes straight back out to location and resumes standby duties. The maximum
sea height I've seen on this vessel is probably 14 or 15 meters. She's a good sea vessel. Once
you're confident in operating it - weather is no problem. If we're on station and we activate the
man-overboard (MOB) alarm, everybody will muster and we'll get the rescue crafts ready. This is
a thing called a drenching system, or a deluge system, you're close to a platform and there's
a fire, let's say, on the platform and you're fighting the fire - the deluge system has pipe
work going all the way around the vessel. So when we activate this there's sea water coming through
the pipes and it's like a protection barrier to protect the ship. Anything you need to find,
to do with life-saving or firefighting, will be on this plan. Okay, now we're going down to
the masters level. This is the master's day room and office - his bunk and his toilet inside here.
These three cabins here are new because the vessel was converted before it became a standby vessel
but they converted it so it would be ready for standby duties. It's like a recreation room where
the crew get an opportunity to relax watch some tv. This is the eating area. We have (Scottish
word) here that's used for serving the food. Hello there chef! So this is your big chiller, fresh
fruit and veggies and milk and stuff. All general dark dry stores and then this is our freezer.
Our anchor set-up with two anchors one port, one starboard. If we take casualties on board and they
are contaminated, they can be de-contaminated outside, but if they need to take a shower,
this is the shower area. The rescue craft will bring the casualties to the rescue zone.
Then they come in here and they're triaged. So depending on how serious their injuries are,
they'll be either put into the seating area if their injuries aren't too bad. This is for
casualties as well, so after they're being treated and they seem to be okay; they have the
opportunity to rest here. So all the casualties, depending on how serious their injuries are-
they'll be assessed by the AMA and they'll be taken into this area for treatment. So the
rescue craft will come in and transport the casualties onto the vessel,
and then they can go through this door. This is where the triage place I showed you earlier,
but if they're contaminated with oil, due to an oil spill, they can be decontaminated here. All
around the vessel there's the deluge system, or drenching system. It sprays out water to create
a barrier between you and the fire - between the vessel and the fire. What happens here is
that the crane that we have hooks on here; lifts this up. We deploy it over the side
and it's like a fishing net for humans, is how I can best describe it. It's just like a big
jason's cradle. We have a heli-spot here. When you maneuver the vessel correctly, this is the
safest location to get a casualty off. Two 25-man life rafts here use the hydrostatic release unit.
If we were in a position where we'd have to launch the rescue craft immediately, when the
rescue craft hits the water, then you put on light tension and it keeps a certain amount
of tension on the wire so the boat isn't rocking all over. If we're at sea and we have no power to
the davits - these are like an independent power pack. Let's say we had an abandoned ship scenario,
then we can also use these just to get away from the vessel because we would like to think these
are our number one life raft. The controls are very similar for the daughter craft. See the bow
line here, you can adjust the tension on that also so if you recover the daughter craft and this is
slack the daughter craft might move. But if you take up the tension on the bow line it'll keep
the craft in a safe position until it's sitting in the cradle again. The purpose of these boats,
when the mother ship is providing cover at one oil platform for rescue, we deploy one of these
and this can go to another platform and provide cover. This is a radar and then you have your VHF
as well, you have one here and you have a VHF here. This is a obviously a portable one and
this is a direction finder again. Remember, I showed you one on the bridge earlier. It'll give
you a bearing to a casualty. If we had to transfer personnel to shore-side, they come in here. If it
ever happened that the boat capsized - it will re-right itself. These boats can carry a lot
and they also have a range, so you could get to port.The theory behind it is that if the craft
couldn't be recovered by the mother ship that it could make its own passage to port. So that wraps
up Part 1 of our technical tour of this emergency standby vessel in Bergen, Norway and Part 2 is
a tour with the chief engineer of the engine room and the cement tanks. Anyone who has worked on a
large yacht, or been in yacht engine rooms - you have to check this out because it is astounding.