Years ago there was only one reel ship - the Apache. Someone had had the light bulb revelation that you can bend steel pipe if the radius of the drum being used is large enough and so it entered service. Now there are quite a few of them, including the Apache II and this extraordinary vessel the Seven Oceans because of the limitation of the steel they all still do rounbghly the same thing, store and deploy pipe form 4" to 16" but the better the means of deployment the deeper the pipe can be laid. This ship has a 400 ton crane added just fo good measure.

Photo taken some years ago by Paul Moar when the ship was visiting Lerwick and posted here on 12th February 2020.