SeaTec assists tanker vessel in Abidjan
In September, SeaTec attended a tanker vessel in Abidjan, West Africa, to carry out a series of underwater repairs on the ship’s shell plating.
The 130 meter long vessel suffered a 15cm crack to the solid floor area of its frame and required a repair in order to resume operations.
Abdul Rahman, head of SeaTec’s 24/7 global IRM-subsea operations centre said “The ops centre received a message early AM from the customer that he had a stricken vessel in need of urgent support. Straightaway we alerted our Abidjan preferred network partner to be on immediate standby. Using our now well established procedures I made an initial assessment of the damage. Realising this was a casualty requiring particular consideration, I allocated one of our in-house subsea repair experts, with more than 20 years of experience in managing underwater hull repairs, to project manage our response.
“It quickly became evident we had a range of afloat options we could offer the customer, from permanent hull plate repairs to temporary, quicker fixes; all of which from past experience we felt would satisfy the requirements of class. It was then a question of agreeing with the customer which option most suited his needs in this particular situation.”
Following an initial inspection, divers used steel putty to temporarily seal two holes which had appeared following the vessel’s impact with the seabed. As a fix, the plating was then measured and grinded out before a backing strip was fitted behind the crack. To complete the repair, an internal steel box was fabricated around the defected area and filled with concrete. Finally, a top plate was welded over the box allowing the vessel to resume trading.
Jean-Paul Engels, general manager of SeaTec’s European subsea operations and SeaTec’s global lead for the subsea network, praised the work of the team in completing the job quickly and successfully: “The operation in Abidjan was performed efficiently to our ISO certified quality standards, meeting our customer’s needs and those of class. With our now well established and growing global reach covering 300 plus locations, we can quickly and affordably access certified welders, divers and competent repair teams around the world to reliably carry out a wide range of SeaTec’s underwater temporary and permanent repair solutions.
Repairs like this can be carried out above or below water, or in combination depending on the circumstances. Normal commercial activities can therefore continue without disruption.”
For more information about SeaTec’s Subsea services, contact Jean-Paul Engels.