During the early part of his career Bob was working up from a maintenance laborer position to OIM (Offshore Installation Manager) of fixed platforms and MODUs globally. He was one of the youngest drillers in history in the North Sea, being promoted to that position at the age of 26. During his time in Scotland, Bob was part of SEDCO’s “A” team, a select group of Drillers and ADs that went around to all the SECO rigs in the North Sea when a serious operational problem arose.
In this case, one of the nine anchor chains had parted and had to be restrung through the chain fair-leader on one of the three footings of the triangular shaped SEDCO-H semi-submersible MODU. This would normally require the suspension of drilling operations and moving the rig to a shipyard for repair. But in a break of relatively calm weather from normal sea conditions, we could re-ballast the rig so that it tilted to one side, lifting the damaged footing above the splash line of the seas, where we could access the fair-leader in between the bigger waves. In the image you can see Bob in an orange survival suit just above the splash zone of the waves, as they manipulate the steel chain (weighing 350 lbs. per 18’ link) through the sheave of the fair-leader. The work was successfully completed, without any injury to any involved in about 4 hours, saving about 10 days of rig time. This was done in the early 1980s, but would never be permissible today as the industry would not permit such a high degree of risk to personnel to save rig time.