Where “Exotics” Ain’t Exotic 2

Here’s another mostly photographic account of quite commonplace traffic off Louisiana, aka in the oil patch.  

Fourchon Runner is running some supplies, equipment, and likely personnel out to one of a forest of platforms involved in oil and gas extraction.  Here are stats on Fourchon Runner. 

This unit on the stern looks to my untrained eye to be a ROV.

Is this an active nearshore drill rig?  

Standing by platform Enterprise 205, registered in Monrovia,  is GOL Power.  GOL expands to Gulf Offshore Logistics, and they have a diverse fleet as seen here. Click here for a short history of Enterprise Offshore Drilling, and here for more info on their 205. Surprisingly it has 84 berths.  I’m wondering why the foreign registry.

A ways farther east, and visible for miles, was platform Enterprise 351, capable of working in deeper water, up to 350′!

Jacob Gerald, a GOL utility vessel, passes a platform, likely not a drilling platform.

As we began our turn toward the SW Pass of the Mississippi River is Randolph John, 

a Tobias, Inc. boat. 

Jimmie Holmes Elevator is a 2006 lift boat.  A lot of lift boats have names including the word “elevator.”

The 2005 ABI C was headed off to deliver supplies and who knows what else. 

Sea Service 1 is a 180′ GOL vessel. 

 

All photos and any errors, WVD. 

Where “Exotics” Ain’t Exotic 1

Long time readers of this blog know I’ve assigned the term “exotic” to vessel types not commonly seen in the sixth boro.  If I’d begun the blog in the SW Louisiana section of the Gulf of Mexico, I’d never have called the boats in this post “exotic.”  For a primer on types of offshore supply vessels (OSVs) seen in these waters, check out this link and call it OSV 101 . . .  as the USCG does. 

Let’s have a look. 

Above and below, the name “tiger” gets applied to two very different vessels with a quarter mile of each other.  I’ve not yet tapped into significant resources for OSVs like the Tiger above or the Tiger below, a small lift boat, sometimes referred to as an elevating boat.  I believe  Tiger started life as Al Plachy in 1971. 

These photos were all taken between Port of Iberia and Port Fourchon, an area where, besides OSVs like Luke Thomas, another “exotic” feature is the amount of energy infrastructure.  I do have a lot of photos I’ll need help interpreting because I could call all these structures “rigs” or platforms but I suspect enough differentiation exists that should be understood.   All that will be part of unpacking my recent hot sojourn.  For a sense of the platforms and active pipelines in the “oil patch,” click here.   A much more detailed picture emerges from looking at a bathymetric chart that shows all the inactive infrastructure that needs nevertheless to be considered before anchoring or spudding down.  

More on Luke Thomas here. 

Grant, I believe, is a smaller but faster OSV. As I alluded above, the amount of differentiation among platforms is significant.

Check out this sequence with Grant, where she approaches stern-to, 

a “personnel cage” is lowered, and 

a crew member will be transferred up to the top of the platform.  Does the “cage” have a more technical or vernacular term?

Gloria May here backs up to a rig in the area of Isles Dernieres/Timbalier Island chain.   I have some good bird photos, so I’m going to have to do a “for the birds post” one of these days. 

I’m not sure where C-Fighter was coming from, but 

her livery and name identify her as an Edison Chouest OSV, and she was headed into Port Fourchon. C-Fighter has appeared in this blog once before here. 

All photos and any errors . . . please pin on WVD.  I did make a doozy of an error in yesterday’s post, and am grateful for readers’ pointing out that error. 

In a few days when I’m more settled, I’ll begin a more systematic record of my trip out of the bayous. 

Exotics 16

Here the previous posts on exotics, vessels not typically seen in the sixth boro.  I take the label from birders, as they use it to classify birds.

Regulus is a 2014 product of Thoma-Sea in conjunction with TAI.

She left to go offshore yesterday, but she’d been at the Bayonne dry dock at least a few weeks.  I believe that red derrick was not mounted on the afterdeck when she arrived, but I’m not certain of that.  Anyone help?

Click here for more specs.  Most likely that derrick is mounted over a moon pool, as would be the case with a DP2 OSV.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who could classify this as a specialized vessel as well.

 

A to P 8: OSVs

Any guesses on the ID of the building with the massive curve?  Answer at the end of the post.

A lot of Offshore Supply Vessels (OSVs) anchored off Amador.  By appearance, I’d wager a vessel like D. Oceano once worked in the Gulf of Mexico.  OSVs “sold foreign” can likely be found in numbers in places elsewhere in the Caribbean and Gulf of Guinea.  How about the Caspian?

These have the same basic design.   Of these, all I can identify is the 1982 Diamond Sea, whose previous names were Coastal Moon and Geri Tide.  Their purpose is likely to transport large floating fenders.

Big Dolphin provides confirmation of the design/build:  this site says she comes from Thoma-Sea in Lockport LA in 1982, although it’s my sense that Thoma-Sea didn’t exist yet at that time.  Her previous names are Patricia Bruce, Grady Allen, Maple River, Viveros V, and Great Darien.

It’s Panama Responder I (1954?) in the middle and –the blue North Sea trawler conversion to the right–Gamboa Express.

Above to the left and below . . . I don’t know.  Might she be used to collect slops? Notice Gamboa Express to the right.  I could do a post on her.

Meyers Gustav here is way at the limits of my zoom.  Built 1963 in Port Arthur TX, she has previously sailed under the names Lafayette, Beverly B, and Galapagos.

Bocas Mariner (1981 and ex-Rebel Brio and Gulf Fleet No. 303) and Burica Mariner (1982 and ex-Arcemont Tide) also have that US Gulf  look.

 

Orion XX,  with Algab in the background, appears to be an oil pollution vessel now, but her life began as YOG-77 built in Bremerton WA in 1945.  Since then, she’s also been Bob’s Boat and Northern Orion.  She was once a twin of a vessel that ended up in the “Graves of Arthur Kill.”   See other YOGs here.

Victory is definitely NOT an OSV, but she was anchored near us.

Schlep is all I can identify here, and I include her here because of the Yokohamas alongside.

The photo below I took in early December 2014, Intl Defender near LaRose, LA, along the Lafourche.  So besides Panama, where has the excess OSV capacity gone off to, particularly after the Gulf oil slowdown?  Here’s a post I did back then.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

And that curved building . . . who is it associated with?  Answer here.

Finally, I have a request:  Show me your seat.  What I mean is this:  I’d like to do a post on captain’s and/or pilot’s chairs.  I’m looking for the luxurious all the way to decrepit or basic.  Email me a photo of the chair and identify the vessel.  I appreciate it.