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Here is the unusual platform ship Edda Ferd at the now pretty ancient Ocean Patriot in UK waters during the month of June this year. You can see it's summer. It's a lovely day out there. The ship is unusual in that it is powered by two Voith propulsion units at the stern, which in addition to offering instant change in direction also, apparently reduced the ship's rolling in adverse weather. The Ocean Patriot a Tosvik Bingo 3000 semi-submersible of moderate capabilities, is unusual in that it was built in 1983, and is still out there. This may be because it did not stop working during the downturn - speculation - I don't actually know.
This short article about a loss of life during a swing rope operation was originally published in my March 2015 newsletter. A discussion about “paper captains” on the gCaptain forum, resulted in me remembering it. Since it is summarised from an actual USCG report names are included.
Here is the UT 712 CD Asso Trentuno in Brazilian waters. The ship is owned by the Italian OSV operator Augusta and was built at Rosetti Marino in 2012. The UT 712 first appeared in the lists of Ulstein ships back in 1984, but this is a Mark II with 19,000 bhp available giving it a bollard pull of over 200 tons. In the background is one of the many FPSOs operated by Petrobras with an offtake tanker attached. You might note that the tanker and the FPSO are not aligned as you would think they should be. They probably both have thrusters and tend to do their own thing. Once more causing distress on the bridge of the tanker.