8 ms·

Where oil rigs go to die

208 points by camtarn 10y ago

jacquesm 10y ago
That really is a long read but a nice one. Great picture of the rig atop Hawk as well.
jtchang 10y ago
Having a designated place where ships go to get recycled is probably a good thing. At least you can control the amount of environmental impact.
- 13of40 10y ago
  Sad to say, but the amount of environmental impact, at least on a local scale, might be best represented on a logarithmic graph.
- celticninja 10y ago
  Unfortunately these designated places become designated because the labour is cheap, the environmental and health and safety legislation is non-existent at best. The end result is loads of pollution and a high death rate amongst workers, but its cheap so its got that going for it.
- jweather 10y ago
  Exactly - they can just be towed outside the environment.
niftich 10y ago
Shipbreaking has some similarities with electronics recycling in that it's hard work ideally requiring some significant precautions, but if you forego those precautions and employ hordes of desperate people in a jurisdiction that either doesn't care or is just happy about the jobs, you can get that done half a world away for more bang for your buck. Then again, in that respect, it has similarities with many other kinds of labor as well. It's fascinating to see that, though challenging, the owners in this case were persuaded by factors other than just money, and this work was performed at a place that appeared decidedly less dystopian than what you see on the tidal beaches of Southeast Asia. Great article, though. This is the long-form content I like to read. It informs by painting scenes and portraying moods. It's not just obligatory anecdotes, but prose that takes you there, makes you see an issue through the different players' eyes, and makes you think.
- panzer_wyrm 10y ago
  I think that requiring robust safety is the best way to both combat aggressive offshoring and help the environment and prevent the race to the bottom in working conditions. "The power of habbit" showed that once you got safety pinned down you can expect for it to spill over in other parts of person life.
  - cr1895 10y ago
    >I think that requiring robust safety is the best way to both combat aggressive offshoring and help the environment and prevent the race to the bottom in working conditions As far as I'm aware, this is how the North Sea sector (which has hundreds of rigs that will eventually need decommissioning) is regulated. Environmental and occupational standards are rigorous.
wallflower 10y ago
Absolutely beautiful read about the life cycle of capitalism and beautiful machines, thanks for posting it! > I asked him if it ever seemed a pity to break up such monumental and characterful structures. Did he look at Winner in the way that I had come to look at her, in the way her former crew looked at her, as something dignified? Sari said the only emotion he could feel about Winner was relief, when she was gone, on schedule. But not long ago, he acknowledged, he had had a wobble. It was over those two young Ensco rigs – Ensco 6003 and 6004 – that had come out of Brazilian waters. When Sari won the right to scrap them, he took the unusual decision to sail the rigs under their own power from South America to Turkey. “I piloted one myself, for the last mile to Aliaga. I wanted to try it out.” Sari mimed adjusting thrusters, striking buttons. “Everything was like new, all the controls.” They demolished Ensco 6003 and 6004 over the course of about 10 weeks. “Beautiful machines. Beautiful machines,” Sari said. Afterwards, To get a better appreciation of how dangerous the job of ship breaking actually is, I looked for some videos. "Scrapped: Chittagong Cutters" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fqrRhqv0Iw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fqrRhqv0Iw "The Ship Breakers" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdYK2vb6McE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdYK2vb6McE
- zhte415 10y ago
  A couple of oil rigs recently sailed past my office a few months ago. On a small break in the park grounds checking how the magpie nest was doing with some colleagues we saw them sneak past. We were all surprised how fast they went. Not fast fast, but in the space of 10 minutes, or so, could clear several hundred meters; the visual comprehension that something we know can move but should not, is. A contradiction of logic and intuition.
  - Declanomous 10y ago
    My parents used to own a small condo on a small shipping channel on Lake Michigan. The scale of ships is incredible. There is nothing quite like standing on the fourth floor of a building, and looking at something that is much larger than the building you are in navigating a narrow curve in a river without assistance. I've lived in Chicago for my entire life, and I often think about how amazing it is that we as people have constructed things as large as skyscrapers and highways. But oceangoing vessels can be just as large, and they move.
gsmiro 10y ago
> Pule did it, I did it – we do this, as humans, we humanise seacraft. Vessels are christened under bottles of fizz. They’re given nicknames and ascribed character. I find interesting that by even reading about boats one tends to humanize them but it seems to not happen with planes and cars. Probably it has to do with the long relations kept by crews and the ships they sail in.
- techdragon 10y ago
  We definitely humanise cars and planes, it's just different due to how we interact with each of them. Early fighter pilots and race car drivers did a lot more hands on maintenance than their modern counterparts and the way they talked about their cars and planes definitely shows they were humanising them.
- gambiting 10y ago
  >>but it seems to not happen with planes and cars. Sure, most people I know don't care about their cars, it's just a thing they use every day. But go to any car enthusiast meet and they will tell you how their car has its own character(and usually has a name too).
- ehnto 10y ago
  I wonder if it's an increased sense of permanence, habitability and sometimes magnitude that allows it to happen. Some boats become decade long institutions, and living aboard a 'thing' that is dynamic and alive with motion is probably very emotive. Even small sailing vessels are often designed to be lived aboard and occupied for days or weeks on end. Cars and planes can be very transient in comparison.
  - ehnto 10y ago
    I am a car enthusiast and even I try to keep my cars at arms length, knowing they could (and have been) totalled and whisked away in an evening for no better reason than someone glanced at their phone for too long.
eitland 10y ago
I was a system engineer for some electronics subsystems for rigs like Winner on the Norwegian continental shelf for 3 years. Will try to check back on this thread in 30 minutes if anybody has questions that I can answer. Edit: just checked, no questions. At work in a few minutes so I won't have time now.
- noir_lord 10y ago
  Did you do software (in the sense you wrote it) and hardware? Many years ago I trained as an industrial electrician but programming was my first love, eventually moved into software development but I still miss some of the more fun bits of been a sparky.
  - eitland 10y ago
    Did you do software (in the sense you wrote it) and hardware? No, I didn't write any of this software. Many years ago I trained as an industrial electrician but programming was my first love, eventually moved into software development but I still miss some of the more fun bits of been a sparky. I tried to become an electronic engineer but ended up in computer systems. I'm hoping to pick up the arduino together with my children soon though.
    - noir_lord 10y ago
      Yeah, GF's little boy is showing an interest so I'm thinking simple robots and then if he's still interested something more interesting (I have a big body of water right nearby so thinking ROV).
- haser_au 10y ago
  What sort of comms did these rigs use? Satellite? And how advanced were the electronic systems on these rigs? I suppose they had to run everything from SCADA through to heating for accommodation blocks?
  - eitland 10y ago
codecamper 10y ago
off shore drilling stocks have been great shorts over the past few months. However, they all seem to be over extended to new lows. If oil pops back they could whip back, so be careful.
fiftyacorn 10y ago
This is just the top section of the oil rig. The bottom section is left in place - and this is where all the nasty polution lurks The awarding of contracts for deep sea drilling should be tied too responsible clean up
- cr1895 10y ago
  This is not necessarily true, and all structures must be removed (though the timeframe is flexible). For some platforms you're absolutely correct; those with gravity-base foundations whose foundations were used for hydrocarbon storage are a technical and environmental nightmare. Unfortunately it's damned if you do, damned it you don't; removing them completely risks catastrophic spillage, leaving it in place also risks damage in decades to come. It was regretfully not well-considered in the wild west days of offshore drilling when many of these concrete-base platforms were installed. Many (most, but I haven't checked the numbers) other platforms are supported by steel towers, and these did not use their foundations for any sort of chemical storage. By law (in the North Sea at least) when these are removed they must be fully removed. Challenging, but not a considerable environmental risk.
- jofer 10y ago
  The ship in the article is a drilling rig. What you're referring to a production platform. One is mobile and needs to sail around the world. The other is stationary and will stay in one place.
  - rhcom2 10y ago
    Wikipedia has a pretty good graphic depicting the difference under the water: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Types_of_offshore_oil_and_gas_structures.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Types_of_offshore_oil_and...
arethuza 10y ago
The BBC had an interesting article about the big Brent platform being removed from its legs (which are being left in place) - this was done by a specially built ship: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-39747670 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-3974...
jlebrech 10y ago
why not repurpose those rigs into housing? there are refugees looking for homes, or 1%ers that want to live where there are no refugees.
- ericd 10y ago
  There's probably some nasty stuff on there... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-03/that-time-i-tried-to-buy-some-crude-oil https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-03/that-time...
- cr1895 10y ago
  - going offshore to a rig is not something that's done lightly; often getting there involves a helicopter trip, for which every passenger has had a multiple-day training course (HUET+BOSIET). This training costs a lot, and obviously the helicopter transit costs a lot too. It's also risky. - these rigs being decommissioned are quite possibly structurally less safe and have not been upgraded or designed with the safety features of more modern rigs - there's limited accomodation space Or, if you were suggesting that they might be repurposed once near/ashore: - there's plenty of existing disused space that could be converted to housing; - decommissioning often means breaking the rig into pieces to be brought to shore, so the expensive cleaning and reconfiguration necessary to turn it into a shelter might not even be possible with a bunch of rig "chunks"
- DonHopkins 10y ago
  Well they've repurposed dinosaurs into gift shops, so why not oil rigs into homes? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabazon_Dinosaurs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabazon_Dinosaurs
DoctorBit 10y ago
Michael Glawogger, an Austrian documentary director, who died tragically in a car crash in 2014, made a 2005 documentary partly about Pashtun workers in Pakistan who dismantle ships. The part about the ship-breaking workers starts at about 1:21:10 and lasts about 25 minutes. It's really fascinating - I highly recommend it. The documentary is called "Workingman's Death". Actually, the whole documentary is really good: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478331/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478331/
- tscherno 10y ago
  Glawogger died from Malaria. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Glawogger#Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Glawogger#Death
  - DoctorBit 10y ago
    Weird. I distinctly remember at the time that it was reported as a car crash, but everything I can google now agrees with you. Ok, he died from malaria. I also loved his comedy movie "Contact High" (2009). Basically a European stoner movie that IMHO is much better than any of the Cheech and Chong movies!
camtarn 10y ago
If you're interested in more reading in this style, is recommend "Deep Sea and Foreign Going" by Rose George, an account of the modern container shipping industry and the old world of shipping that it replaced, seen through the eyes of the writer as she sails on a container ship. After reading this article I actually had to check it wasn't by her - both of the authors have a similarly wonderful style of melancholy prose.
jpatokal 10y ago
There's a documentary called Workingman's Death about the worst jobs in the world: not in an amusing Mike Rowe way, but jobs that are backbreaking, pay a pittance and regularly kill in horrible ways. And there's no commentary, no soundtrack, just unstaged video footage, ambient sounds, and people talking about their jobs and why they do it. One of the segments, Brothers, is about the Gadani shipbreaking yards in Pakistan: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xr722r_working-man-s-death-brothers_news http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xr722r_working-man-s-death-... The other episodes are worth watching too, particularly the Indonesian sulphur mine and the Nigerian butchery. The first of these is also a tourist attraction, and they film tourists doing it for kicks while the workers talk about seeing their friends make a single misstep, fall into a sulphur pit and boil to death in front of their eyes.
Tepix 10y ago
Wouldn't old cheap oil rigs be a great starting point to establish an artificial island (and then, a country) in international waters? The shallow waters 400km west of Namibia seem like a good spot.
- cr1895 10y ago
  Aside from the fact that it's been tried and has largely failed (see: Principality of Sealand), it isn't a workable idea for a number of technical reasons: - an old, cheap rig may be nearing the end of (or has surpassed) its fatigue lifetime. Corrosion, subsiding into the soil, etc. are all factors too. It might be outright unsafe to occupy. - expanding one platform into others or into an artificial island is a monumentally expensive and challenging task; it's not going to happen for some fantastical micronation project.
  - ghostly_s 10y ago
    > expanding one platform into others or into an artificial island is a monumentally expensive and challenging task Oh, come now, just string up some rope bridges between them and hunker down on your platform when the weather gets choppy. You need to play some Zelda games or watch Waterworld to expand your imagination!
larrydag 10y ago
I thought SpaceX could use these as a sea platform for rocket landings. It just might be too cost prohibitive but there definitely seems enough of them around to salvage.
imgroovy 10y ago
I wanted to throw my shoes at my monitor after reading this.
cr0sh 10y ago
Something I wondered from this, was about the salvage master Sylvia Tervoort: How the heck does one become a "salvage master"? I guess it has more to do with the fact that there are a ton of jobs out there that are mostly "unknown" by ordinary people. Maybe it also has to do with location (ie, you're more likely to know about the idea of being a "salvage master" if you live near any place that has such companies as employers). At the same time I wondered "did she wake up one day and decide to become a salvage master?" - and how do you go about doing that? There are many jobs like this, all with somewhat obscure titles; some you can see how someone might fall into this line of work (ie - working up the ranks, or horizontal transition from another area, etc) - but others seem like they'd require such a strange set of disparate skills (as is alluded to in the article) that you have to wonder just how one lands that kind of work? It's not for me (though the idea of world hopping to supervise and assess ships for salvage does have a certain "romantic" appeal - but I know that's a false idea) - but obviously it is for others. How they get such a position, though, is the question in my head...
- js2 10y ago
  You learn this job by doing it. There are no training courses, and so you learn from the experience of your team members. https://careers.boskalis.com/testimonials/sylvia-tervoort/ https://careers.boskalis.com/testimonials/sylvia-tervoort/ I found the description of her character fascinating. It reminded me of another character whose book I read years ago: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004RVNHYE/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004RVNHYE/ Freighter Captain, by Max Hardberger. Here's his wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Hardberger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Hardberger

208 points by camtarn 10y ago

That really is a long read but a nice one. Great picture of the rig atop Hawk as well.

Having a designated place where ships go to get recycled is probably a good thing. At least you can control the amount of environmental impact.

13of40 10y ago
Sad to say, but the amount of environmental impact, at least on a local scale, might be best represented on a logarithmic graph.
celticninja 10y ago
Unfortunately these designated places become designated because the labour is cheap, the environmental and health and safety legislation is non-existent at best. The end result is loads of pollution and a high death rate amongst workers, but its cheap so its got that going for it.
jweather 10y ago
Exactly - they can just be towed outside the environment.

niftich 10y ago

Shipbreaking has some similarities with electronics recycling in that it's hard work ideally requiring some significant precautions, but if you forego those precautions and employ hordes of desperate people in a jurisdiction that either doesn't care or is just happy about the jobs, you can get that done half a world away for more bang for your buck. Then again, in that respect, it has similarities with many other kinds of labor as well. It's fascinating to see that, though challenging, the owners in this case were persuaded by factors other than just money, and this work was performed at a place that appeared decidedly less dystopian than what you see on the tidal beaches of Southeast Asia. Great article, though. This is the long-form content I like to read. It informs by painting scenes and portraying moods. It's not just obligatory anecdotes, but prose that takes you there, makes you see an issue through the different players' eyes, and makes you think.

panzer_wyrm 10y ago
I think that requiring robust safety is the best way to both combat aggressive offshoring and help the environment and prevent the race to the bottom in working conditions. "The power of habbit" showed that once you got safety pinned down you can expect for it to spill over in other parts of person life.
- cr1895 10y ago
  >I think that requiring robust safety is the best way to both combat aggressive offshoring and help the environment and prevent the race to the bottom in working conditions As far as I'm aware, this is how the North Sea sector (which has hundreds of rigs that will eventually need decommissioning) is regulated. Environmental and occupational standards are rigorous.

wallflower 10y ago

Absolutely beautiful read about the life cycle of capitalism and beautiful machines, thanks for posting it! > I asked him if it ever seemed a pity to break up such monumental and characterful structures. Did he look at Winner in the way that I had come to look at her, in the way her former crew looked at her, as something dignified? Sari said the only emotion he could feel about Winner was relief, when she was gone, on schedule. But not long ago, he acknowledged, he had had a wobble. It was over those two young Ensco rigs – Ensco 6003 and 6004 – that had come out of Brazilian waters. When Sari won the right to scrap them, he took the unusual decision to sail the rigs under their own power from South America to Turkey. “I piloted one myself, for the last mile to Aliaga. I wanted to try it out.” Sari mimed adjusting thrusters, striking buttons. “Everything was like new, all the controls.” They demolished Ensco 6003 and 6004 over the course of about 10 weeks. “Beautiful machines. Beautiful machines,” Sari said. Afterwards, To get a better appreciation of how dangerous the job of ship breaking actually is, I looked for some videos. "Scrapped: Chittagong Cutters" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fqrRhqv0Iw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fqrRhqv0Iw "The Ship Breakers" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdYK2vb6McE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdYK2vb6McE

zhte415 10y ago
A couple of oil rigs recently sailed past my office a few months ago. On a small break in the park grounds checking how the magpie nest was doing with some colleagues we saw them sneak past. We were all surprised how fast they went. Not fast fast, but in the space of 10 minutes, or so, could clear several hundred meters; the visual comprehension that something we know can move but should not, is. A contradiction of logic and intuition.
- Declanomous 10y ago
  My parents used to own a small condo on a small shipping channel on Lake Michigan. The scale of ships is incredible. There is nothing quite like standing on the fourth floor of a building, and looking at something that is much larger than the building you are in navigating a narrow curve in a river without assistance. I've lived in Chicago for my entire life, and I often think about how amazing it is that we as people have constructed things as large as skyscrapers and highways. But oceangoing vessels can be just as large, and they move.

gsmiro 10y ago

> Pule did it, I did it – we do this, as humans, we humanise seacraft. Vessels are christened under bottles of fizz. They’re given nicknames and ascribed character. I find interesting that by even reading about boats one tends to humanize them but it seems to not happen with planes and cars. Probably it has to do with the long relations kept by crews and the ships they sail in.

techdragon 10y ago
We definitely humanise cars and planes, it's just different due to how we interact with each of them. Early fighter pilots and race car drivers did a lot more hands on maintenance than their modern counterparts and the way they talked about their cars and planes definitely shows they were humanising them.
gambiting 10y ago
>>but it seems to not happen with planes and cars. Sure, most people I know don't care about their cars, it's just a thing they use every day. But go to any car enthusiast meet and they will tell you how their car has its own character(and usually has a name too).
ehnto 10y ago
I wonder if it's an increased sense of permanence, habitability and sometimes magnitude that allows it to happen. Some boats become decade long institutions, and living aboard a 'thing' that is dynamic and alive with motion is probably very emotive. Even small sailing vessels are often designed to be lived aboard and occupied for days or weeks on end. Cars and planes can be very transient in comparison.
- ehnto 10y ago
  I am a car enthusiast and even I try to keep my cars at arms length, knowing they could (and have been) totalled and whisked away in an evening for no better reason than someone glanced at their phone for too long.

eitland 10y ago

I was a system engineer for some electronics subsystems for rigs like Winner on the Norwegian continental shelf for 3 years. Will try to check back on this thread in 30 minutes if anybody has questions that I can answer. Edit: just checked, no questions. At work in a few minutes so I won't have time now.

noir_lord 10y ago
Did you do software (in the sense you wrote it) and hardware? Many years ago I trained as an industrial electrician but programming was my first love, eventually moved into software development but I still miss some of the more fun bits of been a sparky.
- eitland 10y ago
  Did you do software (in the sense you wrote it) and hardware? No, I didn't write any of this software. Many years ago I trained as an industrial electrician but programming was my first love, eventually moved into software development but I still miss some of the more fun bits of been a sparky. I tried to become an electronic engineer but ended up in computer systems. I'm hoping to pick up the arduino together with my children soon though.
  - noir_lord 10y ago
    Yeah, GF's little boy is showing an interest so I'm thinking simple robots and then if he's still interested something more interesting (I have a big body of water right nearby so thinking ROV).
haser_au 10y ago
What sort of comms did these rigs use? Satellite? And how advanced were the electronic systems on these rigs? I suppose they had to run everything from SCADA through to heating for accommodation blocks?
- eitland 10y ago

codecamper 10y ago

off shore drilling stocks have been great shorts over the past few months. However, they all seem to be over extended to new lows. If oil pops back they could whip back, so be careful.

fiftyacorn 10y ago

This is just the top section of the oil rig. The bottom section is left in place - and this is where all the nasty polution lurks The awarding of contracts for deep sea drilling should be tied too responsible clean up

cr1895 10y ago
This is not necessarily true, and all structures must be removed (though the timeframe is flexible). For some platforms you're absolutely correct; those with gravity-base foundations whose foundations were used for hydrocarbon storage are a technical and environmental nightmare. Unfortunately it's damned if you do, damned it you don't; removing them completely risks catastrophic spillage, leaving it in place also risks damage in decades to come. It was regretfully not well-considered in the wild west days of offshore drilling when many of these concrete-base platforms were installed. Many (most, but I haven't checked the numbers) other platforms are supported by steel towers, and these did not use their foundations for any sort of chemical storage. By law (in the North Sea at least) when these are removed they must be fully removed. Challenging, but not a considerable environmental risk.
jofer 10y ago
The ship in the article is a drilling rig. What you're referring to a production platform. One is mobile and needs to sail around the world. The other is stationary and will stay in one place.
- rhcom2 10y ago
  Wikipedia has a pretty good graphic depicting the difference under the water: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Types_of_offshore_oil_and_gas_structures.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Types_of_offshore_oil_and...

arethuza 10y ago

The BBC had an interesting article about the big Brent platform being removed from its legs (which are being left in place) - this was done by a specially built ship: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-39747670 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-3974...

jlebrech 10y ago

why not repurpose those rigs into housing? there are refugees looking for homes, or 1%ers that want to live where there are no refugees.

ericd 10y ago
There's probably some nasty stuff on there... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-03/that-time-i-tried-to-buy-some-crude-oil https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-03/that-time...
cr1895 10y ago
- going offshore to a rig is not something that's done lightly; often getting there involves a helicopter trip, for which every passenger has had a multiple-day training course (HUET+BOSIET). This training costs a lot, and obviously the helicopter transit costs a lot too. It's also risky. - these rigs being decommissioned are quite possibly structurally less safe and have not been upgraded or designed with the safety features of more modern rigs - there's limited accomodation space Or, if you were suggesting that they might be repurposed once near/ashore: - there's plenty of existing disused space that could be converted to housing; - decommissioning often means breaking the rig into pieces to be brought to shore, so the expensive cleaning and reconfiguration necessary to turn it into a shelter might not even be possible with a bunch of rig "chunks"
DonHopkins 10y ago
Well they've repurposed dinosaurs into gift shops, so why not oil rigs into homes? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabazon_Dinosaurs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabazon_Dinosaurs

DoctorBit 10y ago

Michael Glawogger, an Austrian documentary director, who died tragically in a car crash in 2014, made a 2005 documentary partly about Pashtun workers in Pakistan who dismantle ships. The part about the ship-breaking workers starts at about 1:21:10 and lasts about 25 minutes. It's really fascinating - I highly recommend it. The documentary is called "Workingman's Death". Actually, the whole documentary is really good: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478331/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478331/

tscherno 10y ago
Glawogger died from Malaria. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Glawogger#Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Glawogger#Death
- DoctorBit 10y ago
  Weird. I distinctly remember at the time that it was reported as a car crash, but everything I can google now agrees with you. Ok, he died from malaria. I also loved his comedy movie "Contact High" (2009). Basically a European stoner movie that IMHO is much better than any of the Cheech and Chong movies!

camtarn 10y ago

If you're interested in more reading in this style, is recommend "Deep Sea and Foreign Going" by Rose George, an account of the modern container shipping industry and the old world of shipping that it replaced, seen through the eyes of the writer as she sails on a container ship. After reading this article I actually had to check it wasn't by her - both of the authors have a similarly wonderful style of melancholy prose.

jpatokal 10y ago

There's a documentary called Workingman's Death about the worst jobs in the world: not in an amusing Mike Rowe way, but jobs that are backbreaking, pay a pittance and regularly kill in horrible ways. And there's no commentary, no soundtrack, just unstaged video footage, ambient sounds, and people talking about their jobs and why they do it. One of the segments, Brothers, is about the Gadani shipbreaking yards in Pakistan: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xr722r_working-man-s-death-brothers_news http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xr722r_working-man-s-death-... The other episodes are worth watching too, particularly the Indonesian sulphur mine and the Nigerian butchery. The first of these is also a tourist attraction, and they film tourists doing it for kicks while the workers talk about seeing their friends make a single misstep, fall into a sulphur pit and boil to death in front of their eyes.

Tepix 10y ago

Wouldn't old cheap oil rigs be a great starting point to establish an artificial island (and then, a country) in international waters? The shallow waters 400km west of Namibia seem like a good spot.

cr1895 10y ago
Aside from the fact that it's been tried and has largely failed (see: Principality of Sealand), it isn't a workable idea for a number of technical reasons: - an old, cheap rig may be nearing the end of (or has surpassed) its fatigue lifetime. Corrosion, subsiding into the soil, etc. are all factors too. It might be outright unsafe to occupy. - expanding one platform into others or into an artificial island is a monumentally expensive and challenging task; it's not going to happen for some fantastical micronation project.
- ghostly_s 10y ago
  > expanding one platform into others or into an artificial island is a monumentally expensive and challenging task Oh, come now, just string up some rope bridges between them and hunker down on your platform when the weather gets choppy. You need to play some Zelda games or watch Waterworld to expand your imagination!

larrydag 10y ago

I thought SpaceX could use these as a sea platform for rocket landings. It just might be too cost prohibitive but there definitely seems enough of them around to salvage.

imgroovy 10y ago

I wanted to throw my shoes at my monitor after reading this.

cr0sh 10y ago

Something I wondered from this, was about the salvage master Sylvia Tervoort: How the heck does one become a "salvage master"? I guess it has more to do with the fact that there are a ton of jobs out there that are mostly "unknown" by ordinary people. Maybe it also has to do with location (ie, you're more likely to know about the idea of being a "salvage master" if you live near any place that has such companies as employers). At the same time I wondered "did she wake up one day and decide to become a salvage master?" - and how do you go about doing that? There are many jobs like this, all with somewhat obscure titles; some you can see how someone might fall into this line of work (ie - working up the ranks, or horizontal transition from another area, etc) - but others seem like they'd require such a strange set of disparate skills (as is alluded to in the article) that you have to wonder just how one lands that kind of work? It's not for me (though the idea of world hopping to supervise and assess ships for salvage does have a certain "romantic" appeal - but I know that's a false idea) - but obviously it is for others. How they get such a position, though, is the question in my head...

js2 10y ago
You learn this job by doing it. There are no training courses, and so you learn from the experience of your team members. https://careers.boskalis.com/testimonials/sylvia-tervoort/ https://careers.boskalis.com/testimonials/sylvia-tervoort/ I found the description of her character fascinating. It reminded me of another character whose book I read years ago: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004RVNHYE/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004RVNHYE/ Freighter Captain, by Max Hardberger. Here's his wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Hardberger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Hardberger