 Right, my voice is a bit croaky because hopefully you can all hear me properly So ship versus all rig. Well, let's look at the contestants will start with the ship Try and start with the ship Okay, things are it's hope Right Boss ship. It's known as the big orange or to give its full name big orange 18 As you can see it's orange, but it isn't anymore, but we'll get to that later. I I I suppose by some step standards, it's big but not compared to an oil tanker It's a slightly unusual vessel that spends its life mostly in the North Sea pumping stuff down oil wells normally, of course things come up about in oil wells, but oil can coat the side of the oil well, it can go get a bit sticky and grimy and If any bit of a clean occasionally, it's what's known as a well stimulation vessel. It can pump solvents and all sorts of the weird chemicals down the pipes to try and clean things out including concentrated hydrochloric acid In which you can contain about 800 cubic meters of hydrochloric acid can be on board Which is rather a lot When I'm on board work wise doing maintenance and put on the deck immediately below these tanks So I rather hope they never leak As I said, it's not orange anymore so It's now blue corporate livery changed the therefore the color of the ship changed But they didn't change the name of the ship Apart from the ass, it's generally considered in marine circles to be bad luck to change the name of a ship Although it happens actually quite a lot You'll also notice between these two photos that the rear deck has got rather more stuff on it than it did in the previous one If I just go back to that one You see the rear deck it's got a couple of containers on it, but it's pretty open Whereas now there's all sorts of bits sticking out The reason for that is the bit immediately behind where the crane is you'll see a big white sort of Pyramid shaped lump that's one of there's another one the other side That's one of two silos for large amounts of sand And that's because the other thing they fitted on the back of it Three what's known as catfracks their big diesel powered high-pressure pumps powered by Caspula diesels And they used fracking hence the name catfrak They weren't part of the original fits, but they were added quite soon afterwards. This ship's been Doing fracking in the North Sea for quite a while without any problem But of course unlike on land fracking, which has also been a different type of rock If there's a bit of a tremor in the ground and an oil rig No one really cares because they'll probably know all about it because it's going on it under and rig but When plates start rattling on people's living rooms, they start to complain a bit So fracking is not quite as new as people might might not actually believe But it's not the only thing it does You can also mention that hydrochloric acid it can pump down oil wells solvents And quite a few other things so if you're hooked up to an oil rig This is an example of hose rails hooked up to the oil rig It's a very close proximity and it's extremely important that you don't crash into the oil platform Therefore it's got a slightly different propulsion system to normal ships. It's actually fairly standard for a oil industry supply vessels Instead of just a paler or two out the back and the rubbers Out the back it's got what's known as azimuth thrusters or sometimes called azipods These are swivel through 360 degrees And therefore the pearl in the back of the ship in any direction you like There's also two powerful thrusters in the power to allow that to be moved sideways as well The ship uses this when it's hooked up to the rig in combination with a dynamic positioning system Which is a computer system But he's got a lot of inputs that tell it exactly where the ship is more to orientation is and Make sure it stays exactly where it's supposed to be Some of the inputs from that are off to GPS these days It's also got a couple of weights that can lower over the side torque wires that rest on the seabed and they can use those to work out where it is and The other inputs include wind speed measurement devices, so if there's a sudden gust of wind It calculates what effect that's going to have on the ship and start spinning up the propulsion system to compensate for that before the ship even moves And of course, this is the level of maneuverability means that this vessel in common with other similar offshore supply vessels, etc It can quite happily spin on it's own axis They don't normally have a requirement for that but when we go out doing testing occasionally they do they do it just to test things So that's the ship. You'll know more about that later But next the oil oil rig. Well, not just any old oil rig I'm using to oil rig an oil platform interchangeably here as people often do The oil rig is actually the ecofisk complex or the largest in the North Sea and that photo is actually slightly out of date It's even bigger now These oil oil rigs and the royal complexes that they're not static don't just get built and stay there They grow over time extra bits get added for various reasons as Then they're constantly constantly drilling new oil wells as the main reservoir. They're draining it They're draining the oil out of stops to run out but they'll drill in somewhere else and Get some more allowed from somewhere else, but also some of the smaller platforms here have some other functions This is one of the newer Small platforms as part of the complex is not it wasn't actually on the previous photograph. This does water injection There were two reasons for that on this particular complex. Firstly, it's to Provide more pressure into the well so that the oil comes up easier But also on ecofisk once it took off started taking the oil out the the chalk bed that the oil was in and started to compress downwards and The whole complex was sinking So an additional part Function of injecting the water is it is not just to Bring the pressure up for getting the oil out But stop the oil field actually compressing and collapse me further Although it did still need to lift every plant every every all of the platform has been the complex still needs to be lifted by six Meters of welding extra bits into the legs in the years back So we have the contestants so what happened well Events are on the early early hours of the 8th of June in 2009 The the vessel is waiting out Near the complex they have a 500 meter exclusion zone and they have to wait there until they get permission to go in and What what's the the platform is ready for them? They'll say okay, right. Let's go through the checklist make sure everything's okay, and you can enter the 500 meter exclusion zone and Then back up to the rig wheel up wind out the hoses and start pumping stuff depending on whatever job it is. They're doing So at about four o'clock in the morning They got permission to Start doing this second officer was the only person on the bridge at the time sitting there minding is His bit his own business while we're twiddling his thumbs. He then contacts the master of the vessel I took his term master instead of captain because that's in non-military circles. That's generally the third term They're almost interchangeable So if I say master that's the correct term, but it means captain basically he got someone else in his bed as you're the boss in charge when you do the dangerous stuff and Off they went started moving towards the old platform They fairly quickly realized things weren't quite going according to plan First thing they notice the master noticed is the Starts with a small steering correction and nothing happened Which worried him a little bit? Okay, I need to fiddle the round a bit. Okay, right. Okay. I think we may perhaps we might need to slow down Slow down a little bit, but still didn't seem to have proper steering Then when it started looking like I'm gonna run into something He used the bow thrusters to force the bow around and steer that way At the same time he decided to put the ship into reverse thrust to slow down and stop completely and then sort the problem out But he took when he tried that the ship didn't slow down So it's got a bit of a problem here shit without a control He can't he can't pull the brakes on and it's heading towards part of the complex As well as the complex itself there are also two supply ships moored up to two of the main platforms At this point having used the bow thrusters to avoid going straight into the main platform They're basically going between the two Which is fine for avoiding the platforms and the supply ships But it's so complex as you saw in the print than the photograph previously. They're connected together by bridges Which pipe various things between platforms and they also allow personnel to move around the complex And he managed to maneuver between the platforms, but he went under the bridge The ship isn't quite quite as low as the bridge So I'll just So it did set amount of damage and we'll show you what damage later So that was one of the problems and so There was some damage for that and then they realized that even using the bow thrusters was no longer working as steering So they can't slow down. They can't even steer so only they go Damage to the ship under the bridge Then they're heading towards one of the smaller platforms. It's actually the very small one I showed you on a previous previous slide the water injection platform and Basically they hit it They hit it at nine knots Which is fairly fast And they did quite a bit of damage to it Including shifting the entire platform two meters on the seabed base So quite a big impact there And at that point they just hit the stop button and shut down The propulsion system. I don't know why they didn't do it earlier It would have helped a lot as it would have become clear So I'm gonna run through these events a second time saying what actually happened I'm wondering now is what the people on the bridge thought was happening So they shut the engines down and they drifted away slightly And one of the supply ships for this time had been dispatched to Go over and assist them if necessary throw a tow line on them, etc But before they did that they thought now it's okay They just still didn't know what the problem is. But let's restart the main generators because the propulsion is all electric So the diesel generators They'll then drive the electric motors. So the restarts of the generators everything seem to be okay Then they start out. Okay. Let's gently back away from the complex under our own power They did but then it reversed straight into the supply vessel Just to just to just to put the little little terry on the top for what was a really bad day Didn't do an awful lot of damage to either ship, but certainly added to the embarrassment So let's go through the meeting bit. What actually happened? Well, that's a plan of these ships journey through the complex started off at the bottom Heading as you can see directly towards one of the platforms This shouldn't happen Turns out there were two reasons why this was happening. Firstly The master had inadvertently not turned off the autopilot Big mistake But secondly against all proper Good practice he'd set the waypoint Before they even left left shore. They're still in port. He set the waypoints to be the Platform itself rather than something safely to one side, which is what you're supposed to do And this is why So that was the primary mistake, but there are quite a few others As I said previously, they then started steering using the bow thrusters Um, but the problem is he also tried at that point tried to okay Let's put the brakes on let's let's go into reverse thrust Because of the nature of this ship it's normal practice. Instead of just reversing the propellers. You just turn the pods through 180 degrees Because the nature of this that they perform slightly better in that in that direction rather than just reversing the propellers Which is great if if you're in control of the pitch of the pods But of course the autopilot's in control of that So when he thought he'd turn them through 180 degrees and gave it full throttle to try and slow down He was actually giving it full throttle forwards That then speed built up The wash from the bow then meant that there was a pretty much a vacuum around the bow thrusters So they couldn't they could no longer assist with steering So, uh, that point at which they the bow thrusters stopped working as well. Yep, that's why So they then carried on trundling through to the water injection platform, which is already said they hit it at nine knots But there's a lot of reasons why this shouldn't have been able to happen So we'll have to go through some of those We've already said they set the waypoint correctly to begin with Minor mistake, but mistake number less Leaving the autopilot switched on a much bigger mistake um Not noticing that when you don't have steering control Mistake, but all of this should have been sorted out before it into the 500 meter exclusion zone Both the ship itself and the aqueous complexes radio operator of checklists Both of which include making sure the autopilot is off One of the things that the ships should also have done is to make sure the dynamic positioning system is working Normally they would leave it in the dynamic positioning leaving that in control until they get the go ahead and then they would We go in but they didn't do that So they didn't realize they had a problem And also there's a checklist that the radio operator was radio operator of the complex Includes asking ship is autopilot enough and a few other things But they are they were lazy they remarked things off on the checklist without actually doing them So that's not good And yeah, as they struggled through The the master didn't actually spot that the autopilot switched on He should have done especially when everything else filed um, and Well, also when he turned to the thrust 180 degrees there's a handle It's going to forwards and backwards and the whole thing rotates and there's an LED tally ring around the outside So when he turned the 180 degrees you really should have noticed that it was not going in the direction He thought he was But no he didn't Um, so you just carried on piling on forwards um, and uh Well, there's there's a few other mistakes. They may but I'll probably mention a few of those later. So Let's look at the programming for let's look at the what sort of damage happened This is what the ship looked like before the accident At the top of the on the top of the bridge. You'll notice there's an awful lot of radar antennas Satellite domes and similar Well, not any more there isn't Basically everything above the above the bridge got a number one cut That part of the ship is because traditionally got lots of Things sticking out of it. There's also the highest part of the ship. It's traditionally known as monkey island Um, and basically everything got wiped out They're lucky that the bridge wasn't just a little bit lower So it would have hit the crane you can see on the back of the ship Which is very firmly attached to the Structure of the ship and would have caused a lot more damage to the cross bridge and probably the ship itself As for the front of the ship well It's four meters shorter Really not good That water injection platform that I showed you previously. Yes, there you go That's what it should have looked like That didn't fare too good either You'll notice a few of those cross pieces have gaps at the end where they got broken off the rest of the rig The water platform Um, as I mentioned previously the whole thing was shifted four meters on its seabed base Um, for various reasons this injection platform is due to be gradually decommissioned over the next two years They didn't happen. They basically they wrote it off the it was irreparable and um They then had to then the whole complex was shut down until this and certain other things were repaired So, yeah, they made a lot of mistakes. You think well, why did these people do this? Well, part of the problem is it was the second officer's first trip He joined the ship the first time two days beforehand And he hadn't been properly trained Um, that was made exactly what was missing from his training wasn't mentioned in in the report, but um The fact that he was not properly trained was Another aspect was mentioned was poor bridge culture The mast was in charge and you don't ask questions A more experienced second officer And better culture then the second officer perhaps would have noticed what was going on and said, uh, excuse me, uh This is not right Um, as I've already mentioned the checklists weren't completed or rather they were the checks themselves hadn't been done Um, very bad practice indeed Um, and of course they didn't test the dynamic position system for entering the exclusion zone In which that would have revealed the course that they had a problem The acafisk platform itself. Well, they also skipped items on the checklist Also, as the vessel gained speed it was exceedingly speed limit for the 500 meter zone They didn't either didn't notice or didn't consider it a problem Um, and they also didn't notice that this course was directly towards one of the main platforms again Nothing was said so Not good a lot of damage Nobody hurt though and fortunately Uh, no hydrocarbons escaped So it's just an insurance job Uh, as I said in the description of this a big insurance job. Well, how big? 700 million dollars is a lot of money even in the oil industry Um, so Yeah A lot the ship surprisingly was actually repaired and put back into service um, but As to what cake attributes it a lot to that 700 000 dollars was So he has 700 million dollars the The production had to shut down for pretty much entirely for about I think about two months. That would have been a lot of it But and there are a few other areas areas needed to deal with as well So the other thing is how much worse could it have actually been? well Quite a lot worse Um If it had hit one of the main platforms obviously much greater chance of release of gas or oil and And obviously human costs as well potentially the most likely bad scenarios if they were a little bit higher and done more damage to the crossbridge There's 18 chai pressure gas pipe through there oil goes through it as well That lot would all have been released almost certainly found an ignition source on the ship And there would be big fireball and probably a lot of loss of life Also a temporary feature of the complex at the time was a jack-up combination platform It was originally a mobile drilling rig, but it had been converted to a purely accommodation That could have had up to 200 people on it and Because they're mobile they're not really designed to take the very worst of weather because the assumption is that if it's really bad Winter weather you just don't bring them up to the up to the platform If it hit that's a good chance model three legs could have buckled And well lots of life very large indeed if that happens So not good So those are quite a few things that people should have learned from this and i'll Is it a good example of what's enabling health and safety circles as the Swiss cheese model of health and safety? Multiple layers of cheese or little hulls in it's all fine until they all happen to line up at the same time Through things go and it all goes horribly wrong exactly as happened in this case And of course checklists can be annoying But again If you don't do the checklists your cup corners This is the sort of thing that can happen And of course the final point is just because you get away with not doing something and obeying all the rules Does not mean it's okay No one is killed at this time. No one was even badly hurt I suspect a few people got bruised when the ship suddenly stopped from nine knots to zero instantaneously But they weren't recorded as injuries, but Yeah Skipping something it's perfectly safe. There's other things that will catch it Not this time So yeah, it could have been a whole lot worse a lot of lives lost But because there were no lives lost no pollution They didn't make mainstream news at all Not because information was suppressed, but of course if it happens offshore most people don't even know about it And in addition to that Um people in the industry tend not to like talking about these sorts of things They're not going to get necessarily going to get fired if they do But they always worry about well, maybe a monkey offered the job next time He found the one that spilled the beans Well, this happened 13 years ago something i'm pretty safe ground there I don't wasn't actually getting present on site either. I just do maintenance on the ship quite a lot of the time On the propulsion system funnily enough So when when the rumor came back through the industry when it happened It hit the platform due to a power failure And one of our people had been on board a few weeks beforehand and we were getting a bit worried However, as you now know It was human failure all the way down the line as is so often the case I don't think it about sums it up really We're not doing q&a this at the emf camp this year But if you want to catch me in the bar afterwards Ask me questions about this or anything else relating to the industry for that matter Feel free just wait till i've got a pint in my hand first Okay, that's it. Thank you