flights come off without a hitch, and Dave’s first trip to the Deepwater Horizon was no different.
Now all he had to do was get acclimated with the motion beneath his feet. Ships, with their single V-shaped hull, tend to rock like a cradle. Rigs roll in circles like a cork, which can be unsettling even to the saltiest sailor. The good news is that waves can pass almost unnoticed above the submerged pontoons and beneath a rig’s main deck. Even ten-foot waves have little effect. Rigs in the Gulf of Mexico can be so stable that some even have pool tables, which are playable more often than not.
Some coming off merchant ships found it difficult to adjust tothe rig’s chief asset, its phenomenal stability—the rig’s ability to just sit there. As a junior officer, Dave’s primary duty was standing a watch, choosing a path around ships, boats, and underwater obstacles, objects that might be invisible to the naked eye but visible on radar, or vice versa. It required both quick thinking in the moment and planning executed with mathematical precision and foresight. But on a rig that doesn’t go anywhere 90 percent of the time, the job of standing watch on the ship’s bridge boils down to long hours staring at computer screens and calling approaching ships, begging them not to hit you. It is boring. It definitely isn’t salty.
But Dave was a quick study, and all the aspects of rig life soon became second nature to him. As his friends had supposed, his mechanical skills quickly made him a valued addition to the rig crew, and his personal qualities allowed him to float above the cultural divide that had proved so tough for other mariners to hurdle. For one thing, there was the lack of separation between officers and crew members. There were no fancy uniforms or rank insignia. Everyone referred to each other by first name. A mate’s cabin was like a roughneck’s, and there was no officers’ mess—they all ate the same food. The culture shock was compounded for some because of offshore drilling’s roots in the Gulf. It had always been primarily the province of a southern and largely working-class culture. For one thing, the lower-paid workers, who had no company travel allowance, couldn’t afford to fly home every time they came back onshore for their weeks off. By necessity, they tended to live in or near the bordering states of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, or (east) Texas. They all seemed to have nicknames like Big Country, Chickenhawk, Cornbread, Corn fed , and every rig had a Smokey—the guy who first caught the ship on fire. Off the rig, they tended to return home to houses at the end of country lanes where they couldindulge their desire for acreage, even if they had to drive an hour for a bottle of milk. They had cows on the land, or chicken coops, or ATV hunting trails. They dipped snuff and owned shotguns.
It all could be a little alienating to someone who had grown up in suburban New York or the woods of Maine or on the beaches of California. To many of the mariners, the rigs could appear to be a redneck haven. But Dave took the ribbing often aimed at outsiders in stride, and he pulled his weight. He kept mum about his engineering degree and got his hands black with oil and grease alongside his crew. He discovered that if you were willing to accept the culture and the occasional comments about where you grew up, you could advance—quickly. If you came in with attitude or took offense to the jokes, well…that didn’t get you anywhere. The most important attribute on an oil rig is the ability to work and get along.
Work is the stuff and substance of rig life. Everything is designed to keep the rig working every minute of every day. There are two shifts, each twelve hours a day, seven days a week, with very few breaks. If there’s an ongoing operation on the rig floor, lunch waits. Food is wrapped in tinfoil and put away, devoured when there’s time—even if it’s only five minutes. There are no
Now all he had to do was get acclimated with the motion beneath his feet. Ships, with their single V-shaped hull, tend to rock like a cradle. Rigs roll in circles like a cork, which can be unsettling even to the saltiest sailor. The good news is that waves can pass almost unnoticed above the submerged pontoons and beneath a rig’s main deck. Even ten-foot waves have little effect. Rigs in the Gulf of Mexico can be so stable that some even have pool tables, which are playable more often than not.
Some coming off merchant ships found it difficult to adjust tothe rig’s chief asset, its phenomenal stability—the rig’s ability to just sit there. As a junior officer, Dave’s primary duty was standing a watch, choosing a path around ships, boats, and underwater obstacles, objects that might be invisible to the naked eye but visible on radar, or vice versa. It required both quick thinking in the moment and planning executed with mathematical precision and foresight. But on a rig that doesn’t go anywhere 90 percent of the time, the job of standing watch on the ship’s bridge boils down to long hours staring at computer screens and calling approaching ships, begging them not to hit you. It is boring. It definitely isn’t salty.
But Dave was a quick study, and all the aspects of rig life soon became second nature to him. As his friends had supposed, his mechanical skills quickly made him a valued addition to the rig crew, and his personal qualities allowed him to float above the cultural divide that had proved so tough for other mariners to hurdle. For one thing, there was the lack of separation between officers and crew members. There were no fancy uniforms or rank insignia. Everyone referred to each other by first name. A mate’s cabin was like a roughneck’s, and there was no officers’ mess—they all ate the same food. The culture shock was compounded for some because of offshore drilling’s roots in the Gulf. It had always been primarily the province of a southern and largely working-class culture. For one thing, the lower-paid workers, who had no company travel allowance, couldn’t afford to fly home every time they came back onshore for their weeks off. By necessity, they tended to live in or near the bordering states of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, or (east) Texas. They all seemed to have nicknames like Big Country, Chickenhawk, Cornbread, Corn fed , and every rig had a Smokey—the guy who first caught the ship on fire. Off the rig, they tended to return home to houses at the end of country lanes where they couldindulge their desire for acreage, even if they had to drive an hour for a bottle of milk. They had cows on the land, or chicken coops, or ATV hunting trails. They dipped snuff and owned shotguns.
It all could be a little alienating to someone who had grown up in suburban New York or the woods of Maine or on the beaches of California. To many of the mariners, the rigs could appear to be a redneck haven. But Dave took the ribbing often aimed at outsiders in stride, and he pulled his weight. He kept mum about his engineering degree and got his hands black with oil and grease alongside his crew. He discovered that if you were willing to accept the culture and the occasional comments about where you grew up, you could advance—quickly. If you came in with attitude or took offense to the jokes, well…that didn’t get you anywhere. The most important attribute on an oil rig is the ability to work and get along.
Work is the stuff and substance of rig life. Everything is designed to keep the rig working every minute of every day. There are two shifts, each twelve hours a day, seven days a week, with very few breaks. If there’s an ongoing operation on the rig floor, lunch waits. Food is wrapped in tinfoil and put away, devoured when there’s time—even if it’s only five minutes. There are no
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