Anyone following the MV/ Aiviq in Alaska? Slow motion disaster in progress!

[Tower Todd]

Several days ago Shell Oil's Artic drilling rig was being towed to Seattle for the winter when the tow vessel Aiviq's four engines failed from water in fuel, rendering them helpless. There were 18 people onboard the drill rig that have been evacuated. The tow lines to the rig have parted several times over the last couple days in heavy weather. Most of today was looking better as the seas and layed down, but it appears that late today the towlines have parted again and the rig is in danger of grounding on Kodiak Island. There is a really detailed thread on GCaptain. About as close to real time reporting as possible. Hoping for a good outcome here for all parties:

http://gcaptain.com/forum/marine-inc...-drilling.html

 

[Tower Todd]

BTW: If you look on Marine Traffic (AIS) you can see all the response vessels on scene just off of Kodiak Island.

 

[steveinak]

they mentioned something on the news about it being about 4 miles from land, not good, bet this one is going on the beach !!

UPDATE: Shell Drilling Rig Adrift - ktuu.com

 

[WoundUpMarine]

I started reading about it yesterday, sounds like horrible conditions to be attempting a tow in, let alone recovering the Kulluk. Hopefully all hands are safe.

 

[WoundUpMarine]

Everything in GCaptain is saying it went aground, not an official source, but not a good sign either, definitely another black eye for the drilling industry

 

[CaptDave]

This is terrible it was bad enough trying to tow fishing boats and weather buoys in that area with the 180' buoy tender. I just pulled this link up
Shell Drill Unit Kulluk Runs Aground near Kodiak - ktuu.com confirming it is aground down in the vicinity of Sitkilidik Island

This could be another environmental disaster in the making and certainly an event that will receive national attention. I have friends stationed in Kodiak and I am sure they will be bringing in resources from around the country for this one. John is correct it will be a black eye if this gets messy.

Dave

 

[CEShawn]

Absolutely ugly situation, wasnt sure if anyone else was following this. Looks bad too...

I was of course not even born yet... but hearing the stories of when they tried to drill george's bank was interesting. I guess this was around the mid 70's or something and its funny because they said they gave up the land to leave it protected, but the real thing was I guess two major oil company's couldnt drill because of the weather and actual geology. Correct me if I am wrong but I have to think technology is better now than back there, I also thought that in the past couple years, didnt that agreement expire? I also thought Canada drills on area's like it off their coast...

 

[WoundUpMarine]

shawn, there are rigs drilling up off the east coast of canada, we have one up there, i wish they would hire americans on it. one of the worst catasrophies of drilling in the north atlantic was on the Ocean Ranger, but that was a combination of poor design and poor crew training. I dont know if they will open the gulf of maine up to drilling or not, not sure if i would want them to either

 

[CEShawn]

I have heard of the Ocean Ranger... Pretty interesting stuff up here... There are a few old timers here who were involved with the start of work on our level of operating engineers etc and some interesting stories. I think that opened up a few years ago for George's...

I think I also read an interesting story about the texas tower bit and notice there isnt another one as technology evolved in other area's but we still have some other things...

 

[CaptDave]

Anchorage Daily News Update, Good Article

Here is a recent update from the Anchorage Daily News

Shell drilling rig grounds off Kodiak Island after towlines fail again | State News | ADN.com

Dave

 

[CEShawn]

Cool picture here...

Kulluk Drilling Rig Grounds After Tow Lines Fail [Incident Photo] | gCaptain - Maritime & Offshore News

 

[steveinak]

5pm news from anchorage says it on the beach and "stable" no sign of leaking of the 150,000 gals of diesel on board. YET ???

 

[Tower Todd]

Here is the website for the Unified Command. It has a photo of the rig on the beach:

https://www.piersystem.com/go/site/5507/

 

[CaptDave]

Uscgc spar and comm tuna

Well we know why we have not heard from our friend COMM TUNA here lately he is wrapped up on this case stationed on the USCGC SPAR and has been on Scene. Here is a photo he took which is on the Unified Command Site. His name is in the photo credits. Nick Santos.

121231-G-ZZ999-501-CGC SPAR on scene with MODU Kulluk

 

[CEShawn]

Id love to see a parts list that got shipped out there to the Aiviq... I can see from ABS that she has Cat Main Engines. I have to imagine the generators are also Cat, but not 100% certain. I just go with the KATO engineering, thinking probably 3500 series... again just guessing...

Here is its ABS information card...

Error

Dave, are USCG 2692's public information? I doubt it, as this would be all over the place.

 

[WoundUpMarine]

Shawn, if it was really water in the fuel i would bet it was all new injectors and nozzles, and fuel pump elements, unless cats have unit injectors, i have no idea, ive never worked on the big ones. A big bummer, i sure as heck wouldnt have wanted to be an engineer when the engines stopped, be there, done that, and in way better conditions, and it always sucks.

 

[CaptDave]

Shawn,

I would guess the CG 2692 is between CG and the owner of a vessel

Thanks,


Dave

 

[CEShawn]

John I do agree with the injectors and fuel related items...

I'm just curious to see if anything else was in there like seperator parts...

I once had a wesfalia seperator, which I do not like, have a solenoid fail on me and dump water into my service tank. That made for a complete mess and even EMD's wont run on water, although they recovered just fine. Wrote that up as a water wash of the engine.

I lost the plant once for 2.5-3 hours and no emergency bus. That was my worst and best engineering moment. I pointed out a flaw in the automation system and then trying to recover was fighting the computers. So in the end just took "off" the automation to get everything working again... Pretty wild time, all being my 3rd or 4th day as Chief...

I doubt they received bad fuel, I bet they "made it there" either something they havent figured out with the tug yet.... just my 2 cents... I'd love to know the true story but that is surely gone by now.

 

[Tower Todd]

My friend runs a factory trawler in Alaska and wrote this about fuel in Dutch Harbor:

"I'm not sure where they fueled up for this trip but in the past in Dutch it wasn't uncommon to get a shot of water and crap when we fueled. Dutch seems to have cleaned up the last several years but we still run the fuel into a large settling tank, through a centrifuge, racks of Racor's and then through the primaries. If the tow rig got their fuel from a barge who knows what slugged them. That is if it is a fuel problem. Scary times with them snapping tow lines."

 

[CEShawn]

Totally believable todd but I can tell you this... Todd, thanks for throwing that in there, so many things...

99.9% chance it wasnt just BAD FUEL... even with bad fuel, can be bad planning, etc. It takes more than one mistake to screw things up.

When professional ships bunker we have to submit a sample, that is a letter I have to carry in my office saying what the sample says. So right now I bet people are looking at that sample quite carefully.