eSea 26 - The dawn of an era by Maersk Training

eSea EM AGA ZINE FROM M A ERSK TR A INING

M A R I T I M E/OI L & G A S/ W I N D/C R A N E Â· NO.26/2016

The dawn of an era The Musical Link To Safety > First freefall lifeboat simulator... > Lifting Cranes to New Heights > Man vs computer, round 11 > All hands on desk >

The Boom Box Boys > Five ladies with one aim > True grit turns tragedy into triumph > Switching to Manual > What is MPD? >

content

Cover picture and historical images courtesy of L3 Link Simulation & Training

4 The Musical Link To Safety The history of training using simulators is dotted with knee-jerk responses to accidents. >

10 8

First freefall lifeboat simulator... One of the saddest indictments of progress is that all too often it is paid for, in advance, by the mistakes and pain of others. >

Lifting Cranes to New Heights

Man vs computer

All hands on desk

The route to the classroom starts by checking the current safety level and the amount of activity planned for the next few hours. >

One very calculable aspect of the man vs computer boxing match has been seen in the container industry over the opening quarters of the year. >

Communication, or lack of it, is more often than not a contributory factor in the root cause of a large proportion of incidents and certainly of most inefficient work practices. >

The Boom Box Boys

Five ladies with one aim

‘Have toolbox, will travel,’ was a thought Bjørn Gudmundsen had way back in 1995. A phone call request for some of his specialist loadbearing knowledge was the trigger. >

Give five busy women the same task and see how they accomplish it. >

True grit turns tragedy into triumph Back injury is the biggest single factor for people being off work. In any year it represents a quarter of the days lost at work. >

Switching to Manual Ahmed Salah is another of the flying instructors who don’t teach flying. >

26 What is MPD? We asked someone who knows, Martin Brand an instructor at Maersk Training in Houston, the five classic questions, what, why, how, where and when. >

editorial There was a programme on television the other evening about tomorrow’s food. One part featured a huge operation which, using bar codes, automatically sourced and packed people’s groceries. It was an operation where the human element was minimal – except when it came to the end and something had to be lifted from one box to another. The system couldn’t cope with hidden codes. Then there was a robot chef who cooked an entire meal at a hob, adding ingredients, stirring and mixing, turning the food in pan. In the end a lobster bisque untouched by hand, except that the robot couldn’t with something as complicated as peeling an onion. The onion, as we all know, is a three dimensional minefield.

In the past in eSea we have often written about the virtues of computers in transforming training. Here we, like the guy who moved the beans from one box to another and the woman who peeled the onions, we examine human interaction in the world of training. Simulators are not there to replace ‘real’ training, but as we see with a new crane programme, they are a valuable side-by-side tool to enhance the learning process. Even more so, the freefall lifeboat simulator they have ‘launched’ at Maersk Training in Esbjerg. It quite literally is a life saver. We briefly salute the ‘father of simulator’ training, Edwin Link who turned a hobby into

a global industry and in the process helped win a war or two. We hear from some unsung heroes of the oil and gas industry, the guys who fly out to the rigs with a toolbox and without whom the drilling process would grind to a halt. What is MPD? It is a question which is often asked and more and more a method used in drilling every more difficult wells. We answer it and introduce another trio of letters, TMS. We won’t explain it here. What we will say that it is within the issue and if you have the time, the energy and the systematic knowledge of where to find it, then you probably don’t need it. If you do then there is a 150 second video to explain it.

Richard Lightbody rli039@maersktraining.com

Hamburgefintsiv 4

The Musical Link To Safety The hobby that became an industry

he history of training using simulators is dotted with knee-jerk responses to accidents. The first flight simulator looks today like a rather crude oversized kid’s toy, like those in supermarket hallways where you slip in a coin to amuse a four-year old before getting back in the car. It was built by an Edwin Link to satisfy his love of flying; a love that he could not afford to pursue in reality. At nineteen Edwin spent the first 18 months after he left school in making his ‘plane’ in 1927. His family ran a factory to make pianos and church organs in upstate New York, and he saw the bellows as an ideal way to cause a static cockpit to bob and weave. It would have remained Edwin’s plaything but for a scandal built on multiple tragedies. His timing was sadly perfect. At the end of the 1920’s planes were still fairly basic and unsophisticated, but when the US Air Force won a contract to deliver the US Mail the demand on new pilots greatly increased. Many weren’t up to it and after

twelve pilots were killed in 78 days, the Air Force bought six of Edwin’s ‘toys’ at $3,500 each. A dramatic reduction in both accidents and deaths firmly established the value of controlled simulation training and also established the Link factory to turn out the ‘planes’. The Second World War saw a similar demand for skills to be learnt as safely and economically as possible. Link’s Blue Box, the ANT-18 Basic Instrument Trainer, rolled of the production line at a rate of one every 45 minutes. There is no way of calculating exactly how many young airmen became old airmen because of it. It was a huge life saver. THE NAME LIVES ON There is a linguistic irony in that Edwin’s legacy is in his name and Link is still a byword in the industry for progressive quality. It is almost the generic name for a flight simulator. He was to flight safety what Hoover was to dust.

From hobby through numerous tragedies, a relationship between simulated training and real flying hours was born and today the two schools of taught have come together more frequently and on ever broadening platforms of skills and jobs. Edwin Link died in the 1980’s just before the computer revolution kicked off into overdrive and would be amazed today to visit the specialist centres who use simulation as a valuable tool. Maersk Training was one of these and responding to the needs of customers they have pushed developers to make ever more realistic simulators. NOT THE WHOLE The role of the simulator has developed beyond training the individual for the job. Like in drilling where it can take the job itself and dissect it so that when crews come to actually do it they already feel comfortable and able to deal with just about any scenario.

The simulator is a fantastic tool in the learning process, but the danger might be to make it the only tool. You’ll perhaps read elsewhere in this eSea the way Maersk Training in Esbjerg has used the lifeboat simulator as part of a training programme, not the whole. Mixed with classroom and outdoor training they come together to not quite make the whole. Regulations require that full drills are conducted and freefall boats are now legal requirements for tankers, bulk carriers and oil rigs. ●

Hamburgefintsiv

Click here to freefall

the simulator, the illusion created is spectacularly real. One person pumps a handle and the ‘vessel’ breaks free and drops into the sea. When stabilized the second person can assume control of the craft. Outside the box operations lead team instructor Kasper Träger has a bank of screens and harddrives loaded with just about every weather scenario and a fleet of vessels and rigs. At the press of a button he can turn a

normal day into a disaster zone. Kasper sourced and picked up the simulator from a Canadian company Virtual Marine Techno logy which was set up in the wake of the Ocean Ranger sinking. What makes it so valuable is that at the press of another button he can reset the entire operation.

of practice evacuations. The real boat might contain thirty people, but only two can actively take part, the rest are just along for the drop.

THE JOY OF THE RESET BUTTON By the time a real boat is launched and recovered he can do dozens

The simulator is part of a new highly condensed ‘STCW A-VI/21 Proficiency in Survival Craft and Rescue Boats other than Fast

‘It is very intense, you have two guys doing it without others just standing looking on,’ says Kasper.

Rescue Boats’-course. Whilst two participants are being dropped time and time again in the simulator, the others on the three-day course are out doing exercises in the open water just metres from the new centre, or taking part in classroom activities. It is perhaps the most instructor intensive course on offer at Maersk Training with five for just eight participants. ●

Lifting Cranes to New Heights

The way forward for the people who lift up and down

he route to the classroom starts by checking the current safety level and the amount of activity planned for the next few hours. Then it is along a corridor to an external door, a change of footwear, donning protective gear and finding your way to a ladder.

particularly in the Danish sector of the North Sea. The result has been many fantastic operators doing excellent work and many not so. Speak to the navigator on a supply vessel and they will undoubtedly have a tale or two of how difficult it sometimes is when the crane operator isn’t quite up to the job.

It is a route that Lasse Dam Rømhild has navigated several hundred times in the past, but now the reason for doing it is totally different. He used to do it as a crane driver on many rigs, now he does it to help ensure a new standard in operation. He’s the flying instructor.

Lasse on board and with Andy in the simulator (below) APPROVED MOVE It is an unsatisfactory situation that has been tolerated too long. The costs in terms of time and damage through poor operations are somehow lost in the company balance sheets, the rewards of a slick transfer too often unseen.

The job of crane operator has for too long suffered by being in the ‘you do it’ bracket of qualification,

Maersk Training’s Lasse and fellow Senior Instructor Andy Monie are lifting crane

operations to new heights with the valued approval of Det Norske Veritas, the Norwegian based international certification body who merged with Germanischer Lloyd in 2013. Today any recognition by DNV GL’s assessments is seen as industry standard bearers. The Maersk Training duo put their heads together to improve on the existing methods of certification and came up with a revised threestage programme which ensures that participants are immersed in the theory of crane construction and operation offshore. As well as ensuring that sufficient practical training is validated using censored examination for each training stage. Andy and Lasse are effusive about the on and off shore side of things, seeing the virtues and values alongside the occasional downsides. At the MOSAIC (Maersk Offshore Simulation And Innovation Centre) complex in the Svendborg centre they

have total control of the training scenarios and can change from crane to crane, from rain to sun, from gusty to calm at the click of a mouse. Sitting in the simulator the driver knows that it is his personal pride that is at stake, any errors can be replayed and then reset at the press of a button. On the rig, damage is damage. COUNTERBALANCE It is seeing the operators in their own seats that brings Lasse and colleagues from other Maersk Training centres to the landing platforms on rig´s across the world. On site training is seen as being so valuable that the disadvantages of the programme being dictated by working needs and conditions is successfully counter-balanced. ‘You personally don’t know when you will leave for, or from, the rig, so the training period can be delayed or extended. But when it works it is extremely valuable,’ says Lasse.

The two instructors have together made a huge step forward in terms of developing the universal skills of operators, but they stop short of thinking that it will become a mandatory certificate. It is a classic example of the training finance conundrum. It is hard to quantify the thousands of dollars squandered through time lost by poor workmanship or the odd bit of damage, but easy to see the budget needed to train properly. Crane operators were a part of the Maersk Drilling Performance Enhancement Training that brought entire new-build rig crews together for five intense days of team and skill building. Perhaps more than anywhere else it was a noticeable aspect of the training just how the respect grew from mariners and drillers for the operational skills of the crane department. With certification and improved skills it is a process that is destined to continue. ●

OFFSHORE CRANE OPERATOR PROGRAMME The Offshore Crane Operator Programme is a complete and ambitious solution designed to develop crane operators on all levels. Through three training and assessment stages, the programme combines both technical and practical elements ensuring that candidates become equipped to assume the roles and responsibilities needed to operate offshore cranes anywhere in the world. The Offshore Crane Operator Programme is approved by DNV GL. It complies with LOLER, BS7121 and BS71211 and can include API certification on customer request, hereby ensuring high quality training and a globally recognizable certification.

Hamburgefintsiv 10

Hamburgefintsiv

It’s an ill wind Man vs computer, round 11.

ne very calculable aspect of the man vs computer boxing match has been seen in the container industry over the opening quarters of the year. In the blue corner representing the computer age is the vast London Gateway super-port in Essex, in the red, Britain’s biggest container port, the traditional Felixstowe. Winter weather forced 25 vessels away from Felixstowe in eastern England to the very automated London Gateway. Even when the weather wasn’t too windy some of the giants of the sea like the Triple-E class vessel Matz Maersk, opted to avoid any risk of cargo delay and re-scheduled away from the Suffolk port. It’s an interesting contest.

●

Hamburgefintsiv 12

All hands on desk ‘Excuse me sir, what’s in the suitcase?’ ‘A rig floor’ ‘Next’

ommunication, or lack of it, is more often than not a contributory factor in the root cause of a large proportion of incidents and certainly of most

inefficient work practices. So, and particularly in an environment where there are many other distractions, like on a rig. Here with mechanical noise, weather, obscured vision, understanding and being understood is vital. In fact vital is too small a word to describe it.

The military know this; they have to operate under other additional elements which are aimed at causing more than an incident. For years, perhaps going back into the ancient world, a commander would physically draw out the proposed battlefield in front of him and talk people through the planned outcome.

MODEL PLANNING Today teams on rigs can get the same preview of the future when in planning mode. A team of volunteers from Maersk Training took a specially commissioned set of models and carried out several complicated rig operations – any one passing the door might have thought it was a game but, no.

Hamburgefintsiv

Out of a suitcase from Marketec, an English based company specialising in this form of communication, comes the integral parts of a rig. You build your own work area with relevant features, pumps, cranes, valves, indeed whatever is needed to best set up the situation. You then get ‘the players’ in to talk

and move their way through the upcoming situation.

pretty well continuous dialogue in a 3D environment.

It is a pre-op briefing with a difference. The physical movement and visualisation provokes a greater degree of understanding and the briefing moves from the normal two dimensions without input, to

‘The players’ were drawn from the oil and gas department and sales at Maersk Training. They immediately saw the potential and put everything back in the suitcase. It’s now part of the bag gage allowance for instructors

visiting rigs for on board learning which in itself is a growing trend. ●

Hamburgefintsiv 14

The Boom Box Boys The teams who keep the vital crane supply link working

Peder from broken boom...

‘Have toolbox, will travel,’ was a thought Bjørn Gudmundsen had way back in 1995. A phone call request for some of his specialist loadbearing knowledge was the trigger. If you live on the small Danish island of Fanø, any big ambitions to work almost certainly involves travel, but what Bjørn saw was a global need for his knowledge and his toolbox. After twenty-one years he doesn’t carry the toolbox anymore but his staff of over a hundred, the technicians, are ready to carry theirs to anywhere in the world. What they do with their toolboxes is to service or do immediate repairs in case of emergencies on the silent workhorse of the oil rigs and platforms, the cranes. Fanø Kran-Service A/S has grown from a one-man band to a globally recognized company. One of the first to join Bjørn was Peder Flodgaard Madsen who came on board as a young technician in the second year of

‘We go any where in the world but in our day-today business we cover the whole of the North Sea’ the company. He’s spent the last twenty flying out to rigs assessing and repairing. Today he is Fanø Kran’s Technical Supervisor. ‘We go anywhere in the world but in our day-to-day business we cover the whole of the North Sea,’ he says. ‘the British, Norwegian and Danish sectors have different rules, standards, but similar challenges.’

...to new cog

Rust is enemy #1, but today’s cranes present many challenges. ‘The basic general offshore crane looks the same as the cranes of the nineties, but there is a new generation of subsea cranes and inside they are technically quite something. It used to be mecha nics, electrics and hydraulics, but now there is software and IT to bring into the list of things that can malfunction.’ Back in their expansive headquarters, which have moved a half dozen seagull kilometers from the island to the mainland oil hub Esbjerg on Denmark’s west coast, teams try to work out what the problem might be when responding to a request. There is no point sending hydraulics specialist out when the cause is in the IT system, or vice versa. Calling out the repairman for something on a rig 500kms off the coast is a little more or a commitment than getting the washing machine sorted. For a start there is the safety

certification they have to have and then needing the right spare parts involves more than nipping out to the van in the driveway. There are the little big things like shoulder measurements – the rules for helicopters in some sectors differ from others. OPERATORS’ EDUCATION Peder raised an interesting point regarding the operators. He would not be drawn on the question of bad driving causing more repair work, but did point out that the education level varies from country to country. For example Denmark does not have a specific offshore crane operator education. Specific offshore education and simulator training give crane operators from other countries more knowledge about the ad vanced crane aid and security systems. Those systems represent a big difference from conventional onshore cranes and older offshore cranes, so leveraging knowledge about them actively can be a big benefit in order to optimise per formance and avoiding downtime.

Fanø Kran also supply rather large accessories – this is a four-man transportation and rescue bell

Hamburgefintsiv

Another aspect is in teaching old dogs new tricks. Peder said that the normal system of experience training youth sometimes hits the issue of avoiding developing technology. ”That button there, never use it,” the older guy will say, “heard somebody pressed it once and oh my goodness” so they avoid the new technology and encourage the new operators to do the same. The company has two main roles. One is clearly evident at the modern Esbjerg works where huge gearwheels and bent booms are waiting to be assessed and repaired. The other is the on board maintenance teams, who either carry out routine repairs and checks or are flown out like an emergency service. Any downtime caused by an out of order crane is minute-byminute expensive for the drilling company, so the pressure is on for the flying technicians. They are a very precious part of the entire set up and they usually

have a maritime engineering background. A mechanic in a garage can move from one car make to another with relative ease. But here the backroom team has to make sure that those who go out to the rig are the right people and that they have current and relevant training. Some of that specialist training for HUET and BOSIET is carried out in the pool a few minutes away at Maersk Training in Esbjerg. The North Sea is an important area for Fanø Kran but the name is known across the world and a map shows just how often and how far they are called to action. The oil industry is as we know from the petrol pumps, is in a state of crisis. It is not something which Fanø Kran is unduly worried. They have offshore wind turbine vessels and other ships to look after – a case of not putting all your tools in the one box. ●

Hamburgefintsiv 18

The Meal Situation Five ladies with one aim in Training Management Services

ive five busy women the same task and see how they accomplish it. So that they would give a representative response, one not influenced any competitive instincts, the question was of an action immediately set in the past. What did you cook for dinner last night? • One bought fresh fish and new potatoes from local shops and cooked • One bought nothing and emptied the fridge • One bought a Danish meatball takeaway • One ate out, tapas • and one got her husband to cook pasta. Five very different solutions to the same problem – a problem that comes up every day of life and every day, in different ways, is solved. The five women were not selected at random; they are a single team who take the needs faced by numerous other companies and answer them as cost-

We have such a broad base of knowledge that it is hard to sometimes explain how best to employ it effectively as possible. They are to training management what the hypermarket is to shopping. Called Training Management Services (TMS) they take over the responsibility for trainingrelated administration tasks such as identifying providers, securing seats, issuing joining instructions, certificates, invoice processes, spend reporting and other allied needs. It is a long list,

Play video to learn more about TMS and what benefits it can give you

but because they know where to go, a customised training administration solution can be designed and delivered based on the precise business needs of the customer. The one-stop-shop they call it. COOL PRESENTER The team themselves were set a task which needed one solution – how do you get your message across? Team leader Helle Olsen Reher explained ‘we have such a broad base of knowledge that it is hard to sometimes explain how best to employ it. So we came up with the idea of a video to say hi

and why.’ Team leader Helle, now producer and the one who ate out, found in Line, who had the meatball takeaway, a budding cameraperson and in fridge emptier Gitte, a natural presenter. They may all have tackled the evening meal in a different way, but like the way they approach training management they had a strong single focus when it came to the movie. They built it around something we also do every day, that morning cup of coffee. Join them here.

●

Hamburgefintsiv

ack injury is the biggest single factor for people being off work. In any year it represents a quarter of the days lost at work. One person in four will, at some point, find it too sore or difficult to make it in.

relations consultant at Maersk Training in Aberdeen, got the idea to get a party together to climb the mountain 18 months ago when further major surgery led to an important positive change in her spinal movement.

Gillian Fowler is not one of those four. A horse riding accident in 2008 broke her spine and golf, skiing, tennis, horse-riding, and hillwalking. Well certainly not hillwalking, after nearly seven years of surgery and rehabilitation and the delight of one full year of no surgery, the road to recovery at the top of the world highest freestanding* mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro.

She set up a charity, BackStrong Trust, and got a party together that included her surgeon Niall Craig and physiotherapist Emma Paterson. They were joined by Marie-Ann McLeod and Kay Morgan and once in Tanzania the party with guides and helpers reached fourteen.

At 5,895 metres the dormant volcano in Tanzania is a bit more than a hill walk. The temperature varies 45 degrees from the bottom to the top, the -15C at the summit being a major cause of deaths – on average just under four people a year have died in attempting to reach the top. Gillian, the marketing and industrial

‘The climb was just absolutely incredible and I have built incredible bonds with those who took on the challenge with me,’ said the successful Gillian. ‘I was overcome by emotion on reaching the summit. The day before was the eighth anniversary of my accident and that’s what we were there for – to mark a fresh start moving on from the accident and remembering how far I have come from suffering with paralysis

Kilimanjaro summit with Emma Paterson, Gillian Fowler and Marie-Ann McLeod

Hamburgefintsiv 22

Gillian at the summit with climbing guide Raphael

to climbing the highest freestanding peak in the world.’ Gillian said her main goal was to give people a belief that they should never give up when the going gets tough. ‘It’s important to keep hope burning inside you and although it may be a long process and it has been many years for myself, have belief and confidence

in the people around you and keep setting goals because it’s amazing what you can achieve no matter what’s happened.’ HARD TRAINING SCHEDULE Gillian set a training schedule of lowland walks, mountain trekking, and varied this with cycling, running and using light weights. ‘It was essential to

build up my core strength for this challenge. I have physical limitations but I just had this unwavering belief that I would succeed if I could build strength and stamina. The training most certainly paid off, and it was the most amazing adventure with incredible people.’

highest mountain, but its summit comes from the range it is part of. It is higher but is a shorter climb than Mount Kilimanjaro. From the base of the range to the summit Everest is 3840 metres, 160 metres less than from the savannah to the top of Kilimanjaro.

Surgeon Niall who was part of the party and a huge part of the story said: “Gillian is truly remarkable and inspiring as she has fractured her spine and had several major spinal operations. She battled on through the pain and her determination and grit inspired all five of us from Aberdeen to reach the 5895 metre summit.

Water cooler fact #2 The man who measured Everest never got to near it and did his calculations from theodolites based 230 kms away – Nepal was then a closed country. He worked it out at exactly 19,000 feet, but thought that people would think that a guess, so he listed it at 19,002 feet. When modern satellites were able to first measure it they found it to be 19,002! Today it is 19,029, the extra feet coming from the pressure plates of the world forcing it up and some confusion over the depth of ice at the top. However K2 is growing faster and by year 182,266 it will be taller. Book your ticket now.

Gillian reached another summit. She’d originally hoped to raise £1,500 for two spinal charities. To date she’s reached £9,500, and with everyone’s help she’s still climbing. ● Water cooler fact #1 – Freestanding Mount Everest is the world’s

Hamburgefintsiv

Switching to Manual Beyond e-learning, the on board training session that leaves no marks

hmed Salah is another of the flying instructors who don’t teach flying. His role is very different from the crane instructors who take helicopters out to rigs and then go one-toone with operators. He takes the chopper, but when he gets there he might have fifteen people sitting in front of him. His target is to introduce the drilling team to a training program that is computer-based, that is not a test and will last longer than his two or three day visit. In fact it is a starting point for an educational process that sees the whole world as a classroom. Unlike vessels, rigs have pretty high quality

Internet connections, so once the contact is established between participant and instructor, the miles between them are no longer a barrier. ‘One of the biggest hurdles to overcome was the conception that we head out to assess and make career judgments. That is not the case. The program is purely for their own development, there are no marks,’ says Ahmed. TIDE OF KNOWLEDGE What he shows them is basically a video manual which takes them stage by stage through a well control situation using the graphics and simulation from the programs taught in Aberdeen,

Chennai, Dubai, Houston, Rio de Janeiro, Svendborg and Stavanger. The familiar interface is backed up by three test scenarios, which the ‘student’ can do in their own time when on board, but again there is no pass mark. If stuck by the paperwork they can refer to the video manual and if still stuck, there is an open line to Ahmed and his colleagues back in Svendborg. It is all about raising the level of knowledge on board. The feedback from the first sessions on Maersk Resolve, out in the Danish sector of the North Sea, was very positive. The feeling was that they liked the strong focus on a specific task and

thought that the principle could be applied to other topics like underbalanced drilling. It is difficult to categorize what this type of training is. The term e-learning has often been tainted by too many ill-conceived cheap programs and in a technical way it is hard to come up with a different term of what Ahmed has created. It is friendlier than e-learning, more flexible, freer to use in terms of allocation time and very fundamental. Perhaps it is f-learning, or OBL, on board learning. ●

Hamburgefintsiv

Hamburgefintsiv 26

What is MPD?

Music Player Daemon – a music-player server Miami Police Department – of course Multiple Purpose Document – used by airlines to pay for services not airfares Mesoscale precipitation discussion – a short-term meteorological forecast issued by US weather forecasters concerning heavy precipitation and flash flooding Managed Pressure Drilling – general term for controlling the mud circulation to optimize the bottom-hole pressure

t’s the bottom one that makes most sense to anyone in the oil industry. Yet although the process has been around for quite some time, it is older than any of the rigs that use it, the term still manages to confuse, or at the very

least cloud the mind of those in the industry who don’t use it in their daily work. So we asked someone who knows, Martin Brand an instructor at Maersk Training in Houston, the five classic questions, what, why, how, where and when. WHAT IS MPD? MPD, or Managed Pressure Drilling, is the use of specialized equipment (which can include such items as a Rotating Control Device, additional choke manifold, drill string check valves and fluid/ solids control equipment among others) to control the pressure in a well being drilled. Some is positioned beneath the rig floor in the drill string and fluid return system, whilst other pieces can be located on deck. As a result it can help prevent catastrophic well control incidents. WHY IS IT USED? MPD is used for various reasons. It has the proven ability to make the drilling operation (an inherently

dangerous process) safer, more efficient and cost effective. It allows for closer monitoring of the well and more accurate detection of any anomalies encountered and therefore enhanced response capabilities.

WHEN IS IT USED? MPD is becoming more common place, and in some examples, a necessity, to meet the increasing demands and challenges of the drilling industry, both onshore and offshore.

HOW IS IT USED? Managed Pressure Drilling relies heavily on the use of a Rotating Control Device (RCD), which is a major component in providing a closed, pressurised system. This allows for a constant bottom-hole pressure to be applied and also ensures much greater control over fluids flowing in and out of the well. Volume control is a major component of well control alongside keeping the bottomhole pressure constant (equal to, or slightly greater than formation pressure).

It can be extremely useful if the well has very tight margins between letting in an influx (kick) or breaking down the formation, has a high risk of flowing due to the well conditions, or we are likely to experience problems such as differential sticking.

WHERE IS IT USED? MPD is available on all rig types, from Land Rigs, Jack Up Rigs, Tender Rigs, Semi-Submersibles (DP / Moored) and Dynamically Positioned Drill Ships.

So now you know.

●

Hamburgefintsiv 28 Âˇ Poopdeck 26

Snap Happy

Poopdeck 26 · 29

hey’d been in boxes in the roof-space for thirty odd hot summers and thirty odd shivering winters. In fact they’d been in several lofts, but in none of them had they seen the light of day, they just baked and froze. It was remarkable they still existed. Old 35mm negatives, black and white and in colour and more remarkably, the camera on which many of them had been taken. It was like the scene from Christmas Vacation with Chevy locked in the loft with only his old family films for company. Except that these didn’t flicker and talk, they just silently unpeeled the past. A few years back I’d bought a converter to lift the images from obscurity and put them into a digital folder. At the time it seemed a very difficult operation and after several attempts I gave up. Christmas after lunch is not the best time to toy with new technology. Two years on I tried the snaps without the snaps and

it proved to be just plug and play. So basic, so simple. For three days I was on a trip back in time. I’ll take you there, but there is a serious side to this. That’s the conclusion, but first the journey. There was a snap of a Japanese tourist I shared a bus ride round London with in the early Nineties. It was an unremarkable photo but the memory was sharp. He’d been merrily clicking away at the sights with his own camera, but I know he’s not sitting at home in Tokyo looking at them and reminiscing. That’s because moments earlier we’d caught him on film jamming his Canon and then opening the back, pulling out the film, stretching it up to the light to check the sprockets and then winding it back into the spool, reinserting into camera and carrying on. I’m sure he’s much more comfortable in the digital age. Then there was Bo Gritz, the guy William Shafner gave $10,000

Bo on board viewing a potential ‘gunboat’

30 · Poopdeck 26

for the screen rights to his life as America’s most decorated soldier; the guy who disappeared with the $50,000 kitty designed to fund a treasure hunt I was involved in. He re-appeared, the money didn’t. A guy so devious he makes Walter Mitty seem like Gandi. The picture of him was in Florida trying to source a boat to search for the treasure. His number one priority was for a boat with enough space to mount a Howitzer – he was big into guns. He’s the guy they modelled the ‘A Team’ commander on and a movie in himself. Check him out on Google where someone calls him ‘A Legend in His Own Mind.’ The film’s already got a title. The funny thing about the pictures was not their content, but their ability to reopen long shut doors from the past. The Japanese tourist and Bo pictures were fairly average images that said little, but they each revealed a full catalogue of memories not caught on camera. Like triggerhappy Bo deciding because of

His number one priority was for a boat with enough space to mount a Howitzer – he was big into guns piracy, that we all needed gun practice and wangled our way into Palm Beach PD’s shooting range with a couple of magnums – not the ice cream, the I scream, version. Then there were numerous pictures of my three children when young – thankfully since one was a boy, I didn’t guess them all wrong. This is where the lessons learnt slowly started to creep in. I found my first digital camera, it took a whooping 1.2 megapixel sensor of a photo, but there was no memory card, no pics. They are probably on a discarded hard-drive for which the transformer has

long since gone, the format long since changed and the means of transfer long since lost. The negatives kicked around because they were clearly what they were, you could see what they held. They survived many junk culls because, although fairly useless in the state they were in, they were hard to throw away. The hardware with the first digital pics in is in all likelihood somewhere in a re-cycle bin, disk corrupted and memories forgotten. The camera stored images on a long redundant card, actually it was more like a flimsy bit of brittle plastic about the size of a stamp and only a little thicker. It had the annoying habit of splitting and in the process losing all that was on it. That’s the point, they are not memory cards, they are very temporary storage units. How many pictures have you taken on your phone, marvelled at the quality, and then placed them somewhere you will never find them. How many pictures

have you taken on you camera, reviewed on the small screen and then never looked at again? What happens when, in thirty years, you are up in the loft and you stumble upon an old phone or old camera? Of course there is iCloud, but I’m not sure I would want to put all my eggs into a basket which I can in no way work out where it is or how it works, who controls it, let alone be confident that it will still be up there in 2050. Within a century we went from sepia on glass to wonderful depth in colour on 35mm. Within a decade we went from 1.2 megapixels to 4K. All very impressive. I’ll just mention one word for those who think memories are not fragile, Kodak. ●

Hamburgefintsiv

Magnum time for treasure hunter Moira Lister, the lady who had the map

Poopdeck 26 Âˇ 31

Hamburgefintsiv

Contact Editorial issues and suggestions: Richard Lightbody - esea@maersktraining.com Names and emails of those able and eager to help with specific enquiries arising out of this issue Sales enquiries Aberdeen (UK): aberdeen@maersktraining.com Sales enquiries Brazil: riodejaneiro@maersktraining.com Sales enquiries Esbjerg (DK): esbjerg@maersktraining.com Sales enquiries India: chennai@maersktraining.com Sales enquiries Middle East: dubai@maersktraining.com Sales enquiries Newcastle (UK): newcastle@maersktraining.com Sales enquiries Nigeria portharcourt@maersktraining.com Sales enquiries Norway: stavanger@maersktraining.com Sales enquiries Svendborg (DK): svendborg@maersktraining.com Sales enquiries United States houston@maersktraining.com

Or visit our website www.maersktraining.com