Thanks to Zee Bart 3

The emergence of offshore windfarms has brought “exotic” vessels into the sixth boro and other East Coast ports, such as the ones I took in New London the other day.  Zee Bart has spent some of his life working on the North Sea, and periodically he sends along photos of what he sees.  Recently in Dundee Scotland (on the Firth of Tay) he caught these photos of another large offshore energy rig coming in, energy in this case of the fossil kind.

The 1998 rig Valaris 247 was coming in for layup.  Any guesses how many souls can be accommodated on this rig?  Answer follows.

Four tugboats assist it in docking, but one is obscured beyond the rig to the left.  The ones you see here are (l to r) Kittiwake, Corringham, and Balmarino.  All are part of the Targe towing fleet.  Expanding this fleet was part of the impact of Brexit.  Guess the number of berths on the rig?

Many thanks to Zee Bart for sharing this looking over the horizon.  When I say “some” of Bart’s experience has been on the North Sea, here’s a post I did in 2009 based on one of his hitches that began in SE Asia.  Bart is also the force behind the website UGLYSHIPS.

Here are specs on Valaris 247, which has accommodations for 140 persons. 

An interesting digression:  one of the folks who worked on the Great Lakes ships with me last summer has taken a housekeeping position on a rig this season.  I’m not sure of the particulars like –where–yet.