Aboard the Ocean Patriot

I had to wear steel-toe boots, pants, and long sleeves in the 90 degree weather. I think I sweated off 10 pounds.

In only my second week at work, I was taken out to Morgan City, Louisiana to visit Bollinger Shipyard. I had completed my first project for the company, a Trim and Stability Booklet for a diving vessel called the Ocean Patriot. I was in Morgan City for 3 days, and spent 2 of them at the shipyard. We stayed at a very classy Holiday Inn, I had my own room with a King size bed and free Wi-fi so I was living the good life. 

A deck below the pilot house. You can see it still needs a paint job.

Had to walk up a gangplank to get on board.

You can see some other ships getting work done in the background.

Morgan City has about 25 shipyards, with Bollinger being one of the largest ones. Currently at Bollinger there are 12 vessels in varying states. Some are simply getting maintenance before getting back on the water, while there is one that is just a hull at this point. The Ocean Patriot was formerly known as the DMT Sapphire and was a simple cargo vessel. It was purchased by a diving company and is being refitted with all kinds of expensive equipment to perform repairs on offshore oil rigs that are anchored in deep water. The project began as a $25 million refurbishing job but due to plenty of bad engineering and not consulting naval architects until late, the Patriot is projected to cost closer to $62 million and be delivered about a year later than anticipated. The earliest that the ship will be operating at sea is this September. 

The large yellow tube is the base of the crane, the crane itself is still on shore. The large hole in the deck is the moonpool. The dive chambers will be towards the bottom of the picture, below the moonpool.

The ship is equipped with a large crane, dive chambers and a moonpool. The moonpool is a large hole drilled in the deck of the vessel where the divers enter the water. The diving bell comes up through the moonpool, pulled up by the large crane on deck, and the divers exit the chambers and enter the diving bell. The divers work at around 1200 feet under the sea, and must stay compressed in the  dive chambers when they are on board the ship. They work a 4 week shift living in the 5 by 20 foot chamber at all times, other than the 6 hours a day they spend in the water. They get paid very well, but that still sounds like a pretty awful life to me. 

I may be able to go back to visit the shipyard in August when the vessel is closer to completion, I really hope they send me out again. It was a  wonderful experience to see an actual shipyard operating, especially when they were paying me to do it!