What a time for this casualty to happen!The Discoverer Deep Seas is the largest exploration drill ship in the world. Matter of fact there is a shortage of these type of Enterprise Class Drillships. There primary mission is to explore and find oil. Once they do then the oil company moves in a production platform.
The Deep Seas , call sign (V7HC6) was the ship responsible for finding the Chevron Jack Well Field in 2006. One of the largest recent finds. That field according to Chevron has a reserve of 500 million barrels of oil with a revenue expectation of 3 Billion. The Deep Seas was drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf in the Walker ridge area when the fire occured.
According to source in the salvage community the fire started in the port engine room and the vessel lost 4 of its six engine generators which drive the ships dynamic positioning system, which keeps the ship stabilized on station and acts as its primary propulsion system. The Deep Seas was able to continue some operations on its remaining two generators. Fortunately there were no injuries during the incident.
Not a good time for this to happen.....
Fire idles Transocean drillship
An engine room fire will sideline Transocean drillship Discoverer Deep Seas for around 50 days, the US-based drilling contractor said today.
Earlier this month, a fire broke out on the rig while it was drilling for Chevron at the supermajor’s St Malo discovery in the Walker Ridge area of the US Gulf.
A Transocean spokesman said no one was hurt and the company is in the midst of determining the extent of damage to the vessel.
An investigation into the cause of the blaze is ongoing.
The rig has been moved off location and will be brought into a Gulf coast shipyard for repairs. Transocean has also elected to carry out a scheduled 14-day underwater survey of the unit while it is idle.
The Discoverer Deep Seas is under a long-term contract with Chevron in the US Gulf. The unit’s current day rate is $335,000. The rate jumps to $485,000 per day in March 2009.
Additional Casualty Reports
Transocean investigating drillship fire
Discoverer Deep Seas History
Peak oil theorists don't know Jack
Chevron Well Tests Deeper Gulf of Mexico Oil Deposits (Update7)
Rig Shortage Slows Chevron Bid to Tap Offshore Fields
SHOW ME THE BUBBLE!
Chevron Thinks It Might Have Found As Much As 15 Billion Barrels
WEATHER NOTE
This report made the rounds on the top weather list serves yesterday morning. Brian Barnes is a professional storm chaser and has the experience to guide tours through some dangerous weather systems. What happened here is really an unknown but by the sounds of this it appears that the sheriffs officer ..eh... the son-in-law of the Sheriff. may have over reacted.
Though this is an important issue for all chaser. Professionalism must be maintained at all times but law enforcement personnel must also understand that not all storm chasers are cowboy's and they do provide a valuable service to the public.
Storm Chaser Arrested
by Victor Lopez
CRANE COUNTY--Chasing storms is what Brian Barnes does for a living. And it was while he was doing just that, that he says he found himself in a difficult and strange situation involving a Crane County Sheriff's Deputy. Barnes was out on Tuesday in Crane County as severe weather moved across the region. Crane County was under a tornado warning for about an hour Tuesday night.
"I told him that I was helping out the National Weather Service in San Angelo, and they were relaying my reports to Midland. He told me he didn't care, and that I needed to go."
Barnes thought it was his obligation to stay put and follow the storms, a decision that landed him in jail.
"He jumped out and put me in handcuffs. I turned around and I remember him slamming me up against his vehicle, and then it all got kind of scary."
Among the witnesses was Dennis Greer, who had a similar run-in, with the same deputy, just minutes earlier while he was shooting pictures of the same storm for the local newspaper.
"His first words to me were, 'are you a blankety-blank idiot?' He told me if I didn't leave, I was going to jail, flat out," Greer said. Barnes was arrested at a road side park on Highway 385 and charged with obstruction of a highway or other passage way. According to witnesses, there is plenty of room on on the road in front of the park for a vehicle to get by. That's why they are questioning the validity of the charge. Dennis Greer says, "The guy wasn't blocking anything. He was able to drive a full size truck by with no problem." In addition to the charges, people were taken aback by the deputy's attitude. "He came down there, and was just very abusive in his language. Never once did he state to me why he would arrest me, or why he was doing anything", Greer says.Barnes adds, "He continued to say that I was the example why people were stopping and that I was putting those other people at risk, because they were stopping behind me." Barnes says that during his years of storm chasing, this is the first time anything like this has ever happened to him. And despite this one incident, he has good things to say, about West Texas. "I have to say that everytime I come to West Texas, the people here are outstanding. They are the most friendly people I've ever met," he said. Barnes was released on a $2,000 bond. He plans to hire a Dallas attorney to handle his case.
Calls to the Crane County Sheriff's Office for comment were not returned.
MARITIME NOTE
Plans to create new shipping register
Friday, 2 May 2008 14:31
A public consultation process has been launched to decide on the future registration of ships in Ireland.
The Minister for Transport and Marine, Noel Dempsey, has called on vessel owners and the public to become involved in the process.
It is intended to create a new ship register in Ireland that will enforce legislation on safety and living conditions aboard and help improve maritime safety.
New arrangements are being considered by the Department under which vessels not previously required to be registered will have to do so in the future.
The public consultation process will be used to prepare the legislation, which will result in a centralised electronic register to be used to enforce legislation on safety, security, living, working and environmental conditions.
There are 41 ships on the Irish register at present. Its numbers were reduced when Irish Ferries flagged out to other countries.
Arklow Shipping is now the biggest shipping company in the country.
In the following video we discus the various types of Position Indicating Radio Beacons. We explore the diffrences between an EPIRB, GPIRB, ELT and the increasingly less expensive PLB’s 
RS
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