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  • SidewaysTA

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    Hello Everyone,

    I'm in Subic Bay, Philippines, working in the Keppel shipyard dry dock. Basically the ship has to be dry docked every five years for inspection. I was here five years ago for the last dry dock and now I find myself here again. Actually I've been to Subic Bay about five times now, we come here often for down time (tie ups) but dry docks are special and I tried very hard to avoid the dry dock portion of this down time period and come out after the ship was wet. Due to unfortunate circumstances, that didn't happen. Right now everything is FUBAR'd and SNAFU'd.

    Originally the plan was the ship would go into dry dock, get inspected/repaired etc and be out in 2 weeks. That was before the shipyard blocked the ship with inadequate/inferior wood and dropped it about one meter. The wood crumbled and splintered under the weight and the hull and other parts of the ship sustained damage. Luckily, no one was under it at the time, no one was injured. Now we are going to be in this dry dock for several more weeks while the damage is repaired.

    Dry docks are not fun because you are working on a ship that has no cooling and little electricity. So it is very hot, humid on board. Right now it is monsoon season so it is raining all day every day. The only good thing is, it is not as hot as it usually is here but it is still hot and of course very humid. We do have a sanctuary on board that is air conditioned which is much better that what we had five years ago.

    So every day we commute about 45 minutes to an hour depending on weather and traffic from the Freeport Zone, where our hotel is, to the shipyard. Go to work for 12 hours and then go back. The hotel is nice, we are staying at the Lighthouse resort and I'm eventually going to go to my favorite restaurant here, Texas Joes House of Ribs. I love that place. I haven't been there yet this time but I will. I'll post pics when I do.

    For now here are some pics of the dry dock and a coworker shot some video of our drive in to the shipyard.

    So here is the JR in the dry dock, post block failure. Basically the shipyard screwed up and blocked the ship for 11,000 tons when they should have blocked it for 16,000 tons.
    20180805_105253_zpseoovenyz.jpg


    The prow of the JR. In this pic the anchors are still in place but have since been removed for inspection along with the chains.
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    Here is a nice side shot with a couple of men down there for scale. As you can see we are sharing the dry dock with two other ships. This dry dock is huge, not the biggest in the world but it is quite up there. These three ships take up maybe only the half to two thirds of the dry dock. There's plenty of room left.
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    Another angle.
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    Down in the dry dock.
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    Here are some pics of just some of the damage caused by the drop. That's one inch thick steel.
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    Here's a shot looking up from the bottom of the moon pool. The center structure is the lower guide horn which is where the drill pipe comes out. The second pic is the outlet of the lower guide horn.
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    Texas SOT
     

    SidewaysTA

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    One of "our" tasks here is to remove and inspect/service our sonar dome under the ship. Here are some pics of it being removed. It weighs up to six tons depending on how much water and barnacles are in it.

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    A lot of rain. It's one tropical storm/typhoon after another.

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    If you've never been to the Philippines then you may have never seen a Jeepney or tricycles. They are a major mode of transportation around here. Tricycles are pretty self-explanatory. Originally Jeepneys were originally made from military surplus jeeps hence the name. Now I think they are made from trucks but a lot of them still resemble jeeps. They are stretched to basically become a mini bus and are decorated as the owner sees fit. Really cool looking. There are hundreds, maybe thousands here (not sure, definitely hundreds tho) and they run up and down the roads picking and dropping off passengers.

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    Tricycles do their part to. Sometimes they look sketchy but that is how it gets done here.

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    Traffic can be a problem sometimes.

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    Lots of rain...

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    Here are the videos. In one you can see the big gantry crane of the dry dock over the hill, the JR is parked a bit behind that.



     

    Big Green

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    Okay, I'm gonna be lazy and ask instead of looking it up, how far to Clark Economic Zone?

    I have some time there. When I was stationed in Okinawa we flew down to Clark quite a bit.
     

    SidewaysTA

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    Okay, I'm gonna be lazy and ask instead of looking it up, how far to Clark Economic Zone?

    I have some time there. When I was stationed in Okinawa we flew down to Clark quite a bit.


    I flew in to Clark. It's about a 45 minute drive to SBFZ.
     

    AustinN4

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    Sounds like it is time for some cold San Miguel.
    San Miguel Beer refers to San Miguel Pale Pilsen, a Filipino pale lager produced by San Miguel Brewery. Established in 1890 by the original San Miguel Brewery, it is the largest selling beer in the Philippines and Hong Kong.

    That and a LBFM or 2.
     

    SidewaysTA

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    Sounds like it is time for some cold San Miguel.
    San Miguel Beer refers to San Miguel Pale Pilsen, a Filipino pale lager produced by San Miguel Brewery. Established in 1890 by the original San Miguel Brewery, it is the largest selling beer in the Philippines and Hong Kong.

    That and a LBFM or 2.

    Happy hour at the hotel bar is at 6! 2 for 1.
     

    EZ-E

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    Cool pics, reminds me of being in the Navy & commercial diving offshore.

    When our ship went on WEST PAC, our captain declined to go to P.I. or Thailand. Definitely sucked to hear after after all the stories I heard from the previous WEST PAC guys on my ship. Tons of crazy stories of balloons & blow guns, blowing smoke rings & other craziness that happens in some of the "bars" in P.I. & Thailand.
     

    DubiousDan

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    If you've never been to the Philippines then you may have never seen a Jeepney or tricycles. They are a major mode of transportation around here. Tricycles are pretty self-explanatory. Originally Jeepneys were originally made from military surplus jeeps hence the name. Now I think they are made from trucks but a lot of them still resemble jeeps. They are stretched to basically become a mini bus and are decorated as the owner sees fit. Really cool looking. There are hundreds, maybe thousands here (not sure, definitely hundreds tho) and they run up and down the roads picking and dropping off passengers.

    View attachment 145742

    View attachment 145743


    Tricycles do their part to. Sometimes they look sketchy but that is how it gets done here.
    My wife and I went to visit her family in Angles City (Near Clark) in 1995 and at that time there were no Taxis in that area (unlike Manila) and I loved the Jeepneys. It may still be that way for all I know. I recall seeing a "Jeepney factory" where all the body parts were stainless steel. I wanted one so bad.

    It seemed like Jeepneys (and Trics) ran the main roads but mostly Trics would take you through smaller roads and neighborhoods. Of course my observations are limited to the three weeks I spent there.

    The last time my wife went to visit she brought me back a couple toy Jeepneys like matchbox cars.
     

    SidewaysTA

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    My wife and I went to visit her family in Angles City (Near Clark) in 1995 and at that time there were no Taxis in that area (unlike Manila) and I loved the Jeepneys. It may still be that way for all I know. I recall seeing a "Jeepney factory" where all the body parts were stainless steel. I wanted one so bad.

    It seemed like Jeepneys (and Trics) ran the main roads but mostly Trics would take you through smaller roads and neighborhoods. Of course my observations are limited to the three weeks I spent there.

    The last time my wife went to visit she brought me back a couple toy Jeepneys like matchbox cars.


    Yep, that's pretty much still how it happens. We had a Hewlett Packard support engineer come out the last time we were here to look at our SAN. He came from Manila which is three or four hours away. I asked how he got here and basically, he took a bus to Olongapo, a Jeepney to the area close to the shipyard and then a trike got him to the shipyard gates. All while carrying replacement boards for one of our SAN controllers.

    Jeepneys are like buses and run a particular route and pickup and drop off along that route. Trikes will actually take you exactly where you want to go specifically, more like taxis.

    I'm gonna have to find one of those matchbox jeepneys.
     
    Last edited:

    SidewaysTA

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    Dry dock is dragging on. We have some stress cracks in our screws which is causing us some setbacks. More on that later. Meanwhile, the repairs to the hull damage are coming along. I went down in the dock again and took a look at the progress. Here are a couple of colleagues standing in front of the bow thrusters. I may have stated in some other post, there are six pairs of these thruster pods. Five are retractable and the sixth is mounted in the skeg back aft.



    20180816_125212_zpsjmp3q4oq.jpg


    20180816_125208_zpsbw3twplr.jpg




    Looking aft down the port side. Those are the two pairs of port side thrusters.

    20180816_125234_zpsemoeorf1.jpg
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    Here you can see one of the patch panels being installed at a damaged hull section. This damage was caused by the shipyard when they initially placed the JR on insufficient undersized blocking.

    20180816_125408_zpsmtcv61f4.jpg




    Here is another panel that has been completed and is waiting for paint.

    20180816_125437_zps5jxoilfs.jpg




    Here is a shot of a panel that is in progress. What you are looking at is one of the ships starboard tanks. I am not sure if it is a ballast tank, fresh or drill water, mud or perhaps a fuel tank? This ship has a crap load of tanks.

    20180816_125538_zps4iurqwtr.jpg


    20180816_125618_zpsivtkvq9d.jpg




    Now this hole is meant to be there. This is one of the sea chests. It takes in sea water to cool the engines, run the chiller plants and make potable water. There are several of these.

    20180816_125939_zpskvpxl8w3.jpg



    URL]]
     

    SidewaysTA

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    This is the skeg thruster. It’s difficult to see due to the scaffolding in place to service the screws and stern tubes. Apologize for the blurriness.

    20180816_125801_zpswlpk3cz7.jpg




    This shot is on the starboard side aft looking forward. There is a freighter in the dock next to us.

    20180816_125854_zps9xjd96gw.jpg




    Here the anchors and chains have been laid out for inspection.

    20180816_130316_zpspsapdmkl.jpg




    Let’s have a beer.

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    I finally made it down to Texas Joe’s. It is made up to resemble the Alamo. Inside it is western themed and it is nice to see the cute Filipinas dressed in jeans and western-ish garb and their cowboy hats. Most of them are wearing boots of some type, not really cowboy boots but I doubt they have a Cavender’s here where one can easily pick up a pair of Justins. The place was packed, quite a few USNS guys in there.



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    I ordered the full rack of baby back ribs which comes with garlic green beans. It comes with two other sides. I chose the baked beans and the corny corn bread. They make some pretty killer cornbread, in two different flavors, “Corny” which is what I got and Banana corn bread which is a little sweeter and obviously has a banana flavor to it.

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