So you wanna be a "Rig Diver"

[fstbttms]

Here is an e-mail I just received from a fellow hull cleaner:



For all those believing they'd .... WANNA BE A "RIG DIVER"..... !!

HERE IS TODAY'S RIG FIRE among LIST OF 180 DESTROYED RIGS.

Viking Intel Report >> APRIL 21, 2010
"Deepwater Horizon" oil rig fire leaves 11 missing
The rig, more than 50 miles southeast of Venice on Louisiana's tip,
was still burning Wednesday morning and was listing about 10 degrees.
"We're hoping everyone's in a life raft," O'Berry said.
The Coast Guard said Wednesday seven workers had been critically injured.

Deepwater Horizon oil rig fire leaves 11 missing | World news | guardian.co.uk

YouTube - Oil Rig Explosion in Gulf of Mexico

"We're hoping everyone's in a life raft," he said.
Greg Panagos, a spokesman for the rig's owner, Transocean Ltd, said it
was drilling but not in production.

O'Berry said coastguard environmental teams were on standby to assess any
environmental damage once the fire was out.
The Deepwater Horizon rig, built in 2001, is 120 metres long -78 metres wide.
The site known as the Macondo prospect, is in 1,500 metres of water.
The rig is designed to operate in water depths up to 2,500 metres and has a
maximum drill depth of 5.5 miles. It can accommodate a crew of up to 130.

WITHIN 8 MINUTES >> RIG IS ABLAZE .....
100% SMOKE & FIRE... Leaves very little Time to Respond & Less AIR to breathe.
Surviving DIVERs are praying their Lungs are OK for future Work & Pleasure Dives.

oil rig explosion YouTube - oil rig explosion


Rig Incident List - including Choppers to & from >>
(NOTE > of 18 Chopper Incidents, 95% of the passengers
and crew perished) - Sikorsky S61 - (62 deaths ) Oil Rig Disasters - Rig Incident List

 

[DCBC]

Thanks for the info. Not very good news.

 

[thewils]

condolences to those boys and their familes

 

[ScubaDiverRyan]

Thanks

 

[Wookie]

Is the point that oilfield work is dangerous? Yup, sure is, dirty too.

 

[muddiver]

Um, ok, who makes more money per year? An offshore oil patch diver risking death on every dive, or fstbttms at 3 to 10 feet per dive?

 

[Wookie]

When I was cleaning hulls, I could make $1,000 a day if I worked my ass off and was in the water 12 hours a day. It was dirty, nasty work, often laying in the mud and muck of coastal Texas, hustling to the next job, covered in caca from shrimp and crew boats, you can have it. In Key West, the hull cleaners make $20 bucks an hour, and work maybe 10 hours a week. Even the lowliest tender with an ADCI card makes $50k a year, and has 6 months off per year. Maybe San Fran boat owners pay better than they do in Key West, but with a 100 foot boat, I can still haul, block, and pressure wash cheaper than calling the hull cleaning crew, and have a better job done, and inspect the cutlass bearings and zincs.

I don't have any idea what fstbtms makes, and I'm sure he does a fine job, but I think I'd far rather work offshore than in the harbor.

 

[thewils]

hahahaha @ muddiver
I mean I have never been offshore myself, just a couple years of inland under my belt, never ever scrubbed a boat hull but did lots of pressure washing underwater and thats dirty ****.
in the end though, I wanna be offshore I think almost all of us comm boys wanna go offshore and do at least one stint in the sat bin.

 

[fstbttms]

Here in the Bay Area, a single hull cleaner on his own can easily pull down $120,000+, provided he has the clientele. We're not talking about 12-hour marathon work days, either. And when you manage your clients correctly and clean boats the way they should be cleaned (that is; frequently), it isn't usually a particularly dirty or nasty job.

Bottom line- I'm making at least $100-$120/hour in the water. And at the end of the day, I get to come home and have a beer and watch the game in my own living room. So you tell me who has the better deal.

 

[DCBC]

As far as the offshore is concerned, there are positive and negative points. As Fstbttms has already pointed-out, there is a huge benefit to being able to come home at the end of the day and sleep in your own bed. You get to make love with your wife and play with your kids.

On the other hand, with the offshore you're away for weeks at a time. You normally have a cleaner job than onshore divers, the food is good and so are the guys you work with. You have long periods of time off; which can also be nice and you get to travel to some rather exotic locations (which I've felt to be a benefit).

The money is good and I have to say that I have been really treated well by the companies I've worked for. Having had an onshore commercial diving business myself, I certainly don't miss the paperwork and personel challenges that come with running a private business (all of which I didn't get paid anything to do).

If you're young many of us want to see the world and when we are older we're happier to settle down. I consider myself lucky, as I feel that I've had the best of both worlds. As I became more experienced, my position was such that I got to do things the way I saw fit.

For the past few years I've been a consultant to big oil. They've provide me with a rather large retainer, pay all of my expenses (first-class travel) and insure that my invoices are paid on-time. As I don't have any other employees, I don't have any hassle. All-in-all I'd have to say that the offshore has been good.