The photograph of a personnel basket transfer the other day on Oilpro (this originally written some years ago but expanded this year), and the related comments, got me thinking about a Billy Pugh event in which I was involved one Christmas. Christmas itself is a celebration adopted by Christians as their main festival of the year, but copied from more ancient festivals, which took place at the time of the winter solstice to mark the turning of the year. It had been originally a feast to anticipate the coming of  warmer weather and hence a more comfortable environment and more food. Apparently, if you listen to the historians, the whole business of the birth of a baby of some importance in Bethlehem is a myth, not supported by any possible reality. 

But as a festival it has incorporated the feast and the giving of gifts, and has been hyped by the retailers of the world into a family event that you would not want to miss. The family sitting round the groaning board and eating and drinking as if there was no tomorrow, and the giving of gifts to friends, relatives and most of all children. But if you are working on the day you will miss most of it, and if you are serving on a ship or an oil rig you will miss all of it.

Having been retired for years I have not missed many Christmases recently, and paradoxically, in old age it has seemed less important. It would not concern me if it was changed to taking place every two years, three years or five years. But looking back I remember being at sea, or in places distant from the land of my birth on this important day. One year I was mate of a well testing vessel out in the Arabian Gulf, and in order for a few of us to phone home we waited in line hearing other phone calls through the base station, most of which were entertaining, as managers attempted to get work done in an environment where no-one really wanted to do anything. 

Back in the days when I was a ship captain, working in the North Sea, the operating companies had completely different views. Some used to attempt to programme their schedules so that their chartered ships could by lying quietly alongside on the day, which would give the crew members who lived locally the opportunity of at least spending some time with their families and the rest with the chance of phoning home and having a couple of beers. Others used to try to clear their quaysides before the day, so that they, and here we are talking about the minor functionaries in the supply chain, not anyone really important, could have a quiet time over Christmas Day and Boxing Day. In many cases it was just a matter of luck that one was on a ship instead of being at home, and people serving long term on individual ships and rigs could take it in turns to be at home on alternate years (as they still can).

On occasions you can be on the object at the time of the big event even though you should really be at home, and here we come to one of my many Christmas stories. I’m not claiming that they are unique, indeed it is to be hoped that this one will remind others of the times they spent away, but that now they are happy to be at home.

I was captain of the UT734 Star Sirius in 1985 when it came out from the yard in Kristiansund N, and during the winter of that year it had the job of looking after an Enhanced Pacesetter owned by Global Marine, the Glomar Arctic II,  which was drilling a well about 60 miles north of the northern point of the Shetland Islands. The purpose of our presence was that if, due to adverse weather, the rig had a mooring failure we would bravely get close to it and take it in tow. Fortunately we were never faced with this particular requirement so mostly we just drifted about, often with the machinery on standby, waiting for something to happen. We experimented with the sip’s capabilities to ride out adverse weather with no engines, finding that up to about force 9 it would lie with the seas on one of the quarters, lifting over the waves, although it should be born in mind that we were carrying no cargo of any sort so, as was my habit I was able to give the ship considerable freeboard. As Christmas approached we were roped in by the rig to carry out a downhole survey, so we picked up a couple of surveyors and got an air gun which hung over the side from our small crane at the forward end of the afterdeck. On the bridge we had been provided with a screen on which was a circle and a dot. The dot was the ship, which we had to keep in the circle, using the joystick. The air gun would be fired from the rig. Despite quite a bit of bad weather we, the mate, second mate and I, became quite skilled at keeping the ship in the circle.

On the downside of this quite interesting charter, we were out there continuously for three months being resupplied occasionally by another of the company ships which was  on charter as well, running from Aberdeen to the rig. We were working that apparently wonderful offshore system of four weeks on four weeks off and had been crew changing bit by bit using the “Billy Pugh”, the personnel basket. This required the leaving crew members to stand on the periphery of a ring with their arms looped through netting panels, and hold their breath as the rig crane whirled them up into the air and landed them on the deck of the rig.  It was a process which was quite frightening, but actually seldom gave any problems as long as you did not suffer from fainting fits due to vertigo. But then the cook, who might have been suffering from fainting fits, complained about the means of crew changing, and so those of us out there seemed to be stuck even though most of us were due off, and Christmas was coming. What to do?

Well, I could see this platform ship, the Star Arcturus, coming and going and thought that this might give us the opportunity of getting those who were due off back to their homes for the festive season, and incidentally those due off included me. So I communicated with my bosses back in Aberdeen and they agreed to my plan for relieving the crew. I had a job to explain to them how it was going to work without additional personnel being involved, but they eventually grasped it, and it says something for the guys from the other ship that they were willing to participate, since the process would not these days have survived any sort of risk assessment. 

The plan went as follows. The Star Arcturus would appear on the location possibly in uncertain weather and probably in the dark, since it was only daylight from about ten in the morning to three in the afternoon. And here we’ll use the Second Mate as an example. The standby vessel would launch its FRC, go the Star Arcturus, their Second Mate would climb down the pilot ladder to the FRC and he would be transferred to our ship. Our Second Mate would then be transferred to the platform ship. So now were would have their Second Mate and they would have ours, and off they would go back to Aberdeen. In Aberdeen our new Second Mate would join the platform ship actually relieving our departing Second Mate, and when on the location again we would get the new hand and the platform ship would get its Second Mate back. 

I often found myself cursing the cook, for no other reason than the transferring of people from one ship to another in all weathers and usually in the dark, was much more dangerous that transferring people by personnel basket. But in the end everyone who was due off, except for the Chief Mate and I had been transferred and so my responsibility to get my people home had been fulfilled. And in the end we handed over the responsibility for looking after the rig to another UT734, the Schelde and made it back to Aberdeen in time to get home for New Year.  

This story originally appeared on my website www.shipsandoil.com. The photo of the Billy Pugh was contributed by Tony Poll, the Star Sirius by me..