Category: Photography

Tom | Flickr

TomD

Just happened to be near the Port of Pensacola yesterday and saw this.

This is a Gulf of USA (Mexico?, can’t get used to that) open water oil drill rig. It Is not a ship, it is built on a barge and towed to location. The drill rig has been in port for a few weeks for maintenance and repairs.

We have a years long history of getting some strange looking oil field boats in port for refit. If you look at the bow (left side of the image), you can see the helipad used to get workers on and off.

This rig can drill 35,000 feet deep. Hope the workers speak Chinese.

I’m definitely not a Naval Architect and I can’t fathom (to coin a phrase) how this can remain upright when loaded with the drill heads, pipe and whatever else is hanging on up there while in a 10′-15’+ sea.