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.
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.
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.
Another angle.
Down in the dry dock.
Here are some pics of just some of the damage caused by the drop. That's one inch thick steel.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Another angle.
Down in the dry dock.
Here are some pics of just some of the damage caused by the drop. That's one inch thick steel.
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.