Talk:Ocean Ranger/Archive 1

Anecdotal evidence
Kryz 23:47, 6 February 2006 (UTC) Unverifiable anecdotal prose does not belong in an article; it should remain in the talk page until proven citation is available. Propose removal of "Correction" section of main article until content can be backed up with references...

Reference

 * No disagreement here; the comments should have gone on this Talk page rather than within the article. But the article does have a lot of problems (plain factual errors, speculation with no factual basis, and some gratuitous cracks like the Titanic line) that need to be corrected. I'll try to get to it if no one else does first. I also have some other primary source materials (newspapers, trade press articles from the time) that aren't available online.

Ghaff 23:23, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I accept that the facts within the "Correction" passage are valid and that they give a good description of the event, but an encyclopedia article should not contain first-person prose without quote marks. Quotes from the article with appropriate citation give the article neutrality.

Kryz 19:15, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


 * As I noted earlier, this article from the February 2002 issue of Atlantic Oil & Gas Works appears be be a reasonably complete and accurate accounting of events based on contemporary records and accident reconstruction. The inquiry findings would doubtless contain a far more complete accounting (with the caveat that many details of what happened are not known with certainty) but I do not have access to them.

Ghaff 16:19, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I reviesd the time of the first helicopter arriving on scene from 04:30 to 02:30 as a Universal Helicopter did arrive on scene at 02:30. The first military search and rescue helicopters arrived later at 04:30.

User:skarrletter 12:16 PST, 7 March 14 2009 (UTC)

Further Details and Corrections About the Sinking
The "Corrections" section in this version of the Ocean Ranger article looks to be substantially accurate. I was likewise a mechanical engineer just out of school when the rig sank. I was not involved in the Ocean Ranger design (it was launched before I joined the company) but I was involved in the investigation of the sinking because my department, Operations Engineering, was among other things responsible for rig piping design, including the ballast control system. I have a few additions and possible corrections.

The tragedy took place over 20 years ago and I don't have access to inquiry findings or other detailed information. However, this article from this February 2002 issue of Atlantic Oil & Gas Works jives closely with my recollections.

Almost everything known about the disaster is based on accident reconstruction. There were only a few brief radio messages and no survivors. Thus, stories about hairdryers or who exactly was doing what on the rig as events unfolded are essentially inventions out of whole cloth. Based on the positions of the ballast control valves and the recovered ballast control panel, ODECO's conclusion was that: 1.) The porthole of the ballast control room broke, shorting out the electrical controls that controlled the pneumatic ballast control valve system; 2.) At some point, manual overrides (the brass rods referenced in the above article) were inserted to manually operate the system but apparently were opening valves (the opposite of the intended purpose); and 3.) Because of this, the rig passed the point where ballast control pumps had sufficient head to pump out and the rig capsized. I also recall that the manual overrides appeared to be something left in the ballast control room from shipyard testing and were not intended or documented for operational use-but, as I say, these events took place a long time ago and I don't have any backup for that recollection. The single most tragic thing about the accident is that it's generally accepted that if the crew had just left the ballast control panel shut off (with the valves thereby in their default closed state) and gone to bed, there's no reason to believe that the rig wouldn't have been able to ride out the storm witthout harm.

According to the reference materials I have, the rig was found on the ocean bottom about 300 ft. from the drillsite, inverted with its structure intact.

The news stories I have give conflicting reports about the lifeboats and whether there were people still alive that the workboats couldn't rescue but I'm inclined to accept what it says in the 2002 article rather than confused accounts in the days after the sinking. It's probably hard to visualize the conditions under which rescues were being attempted. Winds were close to 100 knots and there were waves as high as 70 feet or so. Thus, inadequacy of survival training and equipment notwithstanding (and there certainly were problems) it's unclear what difference it would have made in the end. I don't know if there were technical problems with lowering one or more of the lifeboats or not.

Ghaff 18:59, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I was a witness to this tragedy and asked to assist in identifying the 22 bodies recovered. I lost one man, not an Odeco hand, whose body was never found. Most of what is written above is accurate to the root cause of the sinking concerning the errors made with the ballast control system and the "culture" of the rig. It should also be noted that the environment at the time of the sinking played the biggest role in making this a disaster. If the chain of events had been broken this would never have happened. I was one of a few who had personally complained to Mobil supervisors in St.Johns when they had ballast and listing problems a week before the sinking, and the lack of safety drill participation when I had visited the rig. ( in fact- I was to go out the morning the rig went down to follow up on some of the complaints not related to safety, but for some rig equipment). I was assured by Odeco management who I will keep nameless as I know one of these individuals is now dead, that their offices were looking into the problem. There were survivors that did manage to get away from the rig in one life boat but did perish when they panicked and tipped over the boat by getting on one side as it approached the Seaforth Highlander. I was in Mobil's radio room at the time the vessel was in contact with Odeco and Mobil personnel and heard the exchange about the found lifeboat. I was asked to leave the radio room as I was a contractor rep at 3 am. I was later informed at 5 am that the rig was lost and the survivors in the lifeboat were also lost as mentioned above. The rig structure was not intact when it was upside down, the derrick and all contractors "trailers" were spread around the ocean floor. This was a time I know I will never forget as I lost many good friends. I do believe that there was one big injustice done to the Newfoundlanders' families that people generally do not know. They received about $50,000 for each individual lost due to Workmens Comp laws ( approx. 50 individuals affected). Any other man's family got about a million each. Odeco received due to insurance ( rig was over insured and lawyers for Odeco would not let the company set a precedent by paying out more) about 100 million. Odeco showed a big profit when the rig went down. Too bad the lawyers didn't go down with the rig instead of the 84 good souls. Oceanrangerwitness 04:04, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I can verify the lack of training aspect here.I was the control room operator on the Ocean Ranger when it was operating in Lower Cook Inlet and the Gulf of Alaska.I was "trained" in the Gulf of Mexico on other rigs,one of which sat on bottom.Neither of the operators on either rig would ever let me touch the control panel.When I arrived on the Ocean Ranger,my training pretty much consisted of the operator from the other shift showing me the ropes while the tool pusher explained that he would not pay the overtime.A very OTJ training aproach.I even have a picture of that portholeand that control panel. I did see a 65' wave through that porthole...............

rewrite
Hi there, I've re-written a substantial part of the text based on the United States Coast Guard's Marine Casualty Report, which I've listed as the main source for this article. The Marine Casualty Report details the main evidence, including the radio traffic, of the sinking of the Ocean Ranger, and also outlines the main scenarios which could have contributed to the sinking. Note that there is not one verified explanation to the sinking, only a number of observations and deductions which indicate what may have happened.

I've tried to be as objective as possible whilst reviewing the Marine Casualty Report but it's possible that some errors have crept or that I've missed something, in which case please feel free to update the article.

Vodkasim 16:00, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

A nice job on a delicate subject. The USCG would seem to be as reliably neutral source as could be expected in this sort of situation. The only addition that I would suggest comes from the article that I reference below. It contains the paragraph:

"The seawater short-circuited the ­control panel and caused several sea valves to open, allowing seawater to ­enter the forward tanks. This ­created a list in the Ocean Ranger. At this point, the crew left the pumps running and inserted the brass manual control rods in an effort to close the valves they thought were open. In fact, insertion of the rods opened the valves and allowed more ­water to pour into the rig."

While speculation, it is informed speculation based on an examination of physical evidence on the ocean floor (I don't know what, if anything, was brought up to the surface.) It was also consistent with the results of an analysis of the physical behavior of the rig based on the hypothesized scenario. Thus, it seems as valid as any sort of accident reconstruction. I would suggest adding this, not as "fact", but as what ODECO reconstructed as the most likely scenario in its view.

BTW, I think I have a publicity photo of the Ocean Ranger when drilling in Alaska that should qualify under fair use.

Ghaff 23:41, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello Ghaff, thanks for your comments.

I had to think long and hard about what to include on the subject of the ballast control malfunction. The USCG Marine Board of Investigation stated in its conclusions regarding the opening of several ballast control valves that 'there is insufficient evidence to favour support for any one of the several possible scenarios for this event'. The Marine Board of Investigation goes on to state, 'the first possibility was that an entirely electrical malfunction occurred which directly caused several ballast system valves to open. The second possibility was that those individuals who were attempting to correct an actual or perceived malfunction of the console, or who were attempting to operate the system by manual control, made an error which had the same end result as opening several ballast system valves and allowing water to enter the forward tanks. A number of other possible and entirely plausible scenarios can be made combining various aspects of these two extremes.'

So you can see that it is difficult to objectively state what caused the initial list. For this reason, I wrote: 'The United States Coast Guard concluded that the rig's list was a result of a either a ballast control malfunction or human error, or a combination of the two, causing, at some point, valves to operate which allowed water to enter the rig's forward ballast tanks', because it cannot be concluded with certainty which was the cause.

As a result I would recommend not including the statements that the sea water caused a short circuit and that this short circuit caused sea valves to open, as these points have not been proven (as far as I can tell in my readings). I would also hesitate to state that the crew left the pumps running and that the insertion of the manual control rods allowed more water to pour into the rig as this is again only one speculated route to loss.

It may be simpler to add a paragraph detailing the chain of events causing the loss:


 * a large wave appeared to cause broken portlight;
 * the broken portlight allowed the ingress of water into the ballast control room;
 * the ballast control panel malfunctioned or appeared to malfunction to the crew;
 * as a result of this malfunction or perceived malfunction, several valves in the rig's ballast control system opened, or were opened;
 * the Ocean Ranger assumed a forward list;
 * as a result of the forward list, boarding seas began flooding the forward chain lockers located in the corner support columns;
 * the forward list worsened;
 * the pumping of the forward tanks was not possible using the usual ballast control method as the magnitude of the forward list created a vertical distance between the forward tanks and the ballast pumps located astern that exceeded the suction available on the ballast system's pumps;
 * detailed instructions and personnel trained in the use of the ballast control panel were not available;
 * at some point, the crew blindly attempted to manually operate the ballast control panel using the brass control rods;
 * at some point, the manually operated sea valves in both pontoons were closed;
 * progressive flooding of the chain lockers and subsequent flooding of the upper deck caused the rig to capsize.

Any comments on this welcome. My one worry is that the article will become too long and unwieldy - it might be an idea to break the article up into a few sections, such as 'Introduction', 'Prior to the Accident', and 'Causes and Aftermath'. Something like that.

I've also removed the POV Check code from the beginning - my aim was to make the article more neutral and I think it now has a much more unbiased feel.

Oh, and please upload the photo - it would certainly complement the article. Thanks again, Vodkasim 16:39, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

That all sounds very reasonable. I understand the concern about complexity. I think the issue with leaving the chain of events out is that it invites future additions to the article that are not based on the facts or, at least, engineering-based reconstructions of what facts are known. Breaking into sections could indeed organize the material.

Some of the speculations re: the shorts seem reasonable given that the Ranger used an electro-pneumatic ballast control system rather than a conventional all-pneumatic system. However, I agree that anything related to that is conjecture.

FYI, my background here is that I was an engineer at ODECO who was involved in the accident reconstruction. I wasn't a designer on the Ranger (though I was involved with designing the Odyssey (OR II at the the time) and was also involved in shipyard retrofits on various other rigs). I was also involved with adding an emergency ballast blow system to a variety of rigs after the Ocean Ranger tragedy.

Again, good job on this. I'd been meaning to but you've done a great job with the best source material available.

Ghaff 04:09, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Have added the USCG chain of events and split the article into sections. Also included the possibility of shorting in the ballast control panel in the chain of events paragraph. Looks ok - comments/updates welcome.

Vodkasim 16:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Rogue Wave
To FT2, Hi, sorry to be a pain, but I've removed the links to the Rogue Wave article as I do not believe that there is any relevent link between the Ocean Ranger and Rogue Waves. The argument against including a reference to rogue waves is as follows:

The storm seas experienced by the Ocean Ranger on the day of its sinking were 50-60 feet (see the USCG Marine Investigation Board report). The Ranger had an 80 foot draft on the day of the sinking, meaning that the main deck was 54 feet above sea level and the ballast control room was at 25 feet above sea level. The bottom line here is that it is possible for many large waves to strike up to the main deck level, and certainly likely that waves could strike up to the ballast control room height. One of the probable causes of the accident was that the portholes of the ballast control room were not covered with their protective hatches thus allowing the portholes to sustain damage.

Further to this, the Ocean Ranger and the neighbouring two rigs each had their own individual support vessel which maintained a position within a few kilometres of each rig. If a rogue/freak wave had been involved in the sinking of the Ranger then it would almost undoubtedly have been experienced and recorded by one of the neighbouring 5 vessels. No such mention of a rogue wave is made during the witness statements of the crews of the various neighbouring vessels.

Vodkasim 13:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Moved content
Discussion should be on an article's talk page, not the article itself. I am moving that content here:

-BEGINNING OF CUT-

Correction: I was a young engineer (BSME) just out of school working for ODECO, the owner/operators of the rig, at the time of the sinking. I was hired into a toolpusher's (the title given to the head authority on a rig) training program along with 10-15 other engineers in an effort by ODECO to put engineers offshore because of the increasing complexity of the operations as deeper waters were being encountered. There was also a corporate culture of master/servant between the toolpushers and management that made communication between the two very difficult as the toolpushers tended to avoid revelations of mistakes. It was probably thought that fellow engineers would be much more forthcoming as to what was transpiring offshore in an effort to avoid disasters which had occurred in the past. Our group worked on the rigs, usually on the drill floor as roughnecks, so while it was awhile ago I have pretty good knowledge of rig operations. The reasons for it's sinking were explained a few years afterward by the head of operations to this group of engineers which differs from the above explanation.

First there are a few mistakes in the above text to clarify.

''separate the main drilling platform from the rest of the rig if they could retrieve the drill string. This had been done only once or twice before''

The main drilling platform is not detachable from the main rig. It is an integral part of the rig. Detaching the rig from the blow out preventer (BOP), which sits on sea floor, is probably what the author means. This has been done many times and is a simple and well understood procedure.

 The crew removed the relays, rinsed them in clean water to get the salt out of them, and dried them with a hairdryer. But when they reinstalled the relays and turned on the power, the control panel was still wet and shorted out again. 

This was never revealed to us. What was revealed, was that some of the last messages from the rig was that for some unexplained reason the valves were opening and closing on their own. This communication was not directly to the company but through a land based office in Canada as the means of communication was not long range. On all previous rigs the ballast control systems employed pneumatic pilot valves which sent a control signal down to the ballast valves located in the legs, that allow movement of water between the ballast tanks and the ocean. On this rig a slightly different method was used which indirectly caused the sinking. Instead of using pneumatic valves at the control panel, electric switches were used that via solenoid operated the pilot vales located inside the control panel. It was these switches that malfunctioned after becoming wet. To the crew this appeared as random opening and closing of the ballast valves. If the crew would have known the difference between this rig and every rig they had worked on before, they could have simply opened up the control panel and overrided the electric switches (the pilot valves had this capability). I recall that all of this was based on the evidence that the only way the system could have behaved in this manner was because of the electrical components becoming wet not because of any reports involving hairdryers.

Rescue attempts by helicopter and the attending supply ship, Seaforth Highlander'', were hampered by the storm and cold water. The men in the lifeboat caused it to capsize when they all stood on one side and tried to climb a rescue line thrown to them from the supply ship. The Seaforth Highlander then launched its own large inflatable life raft, but it floated away just out of reach of the freezing and drowning men. The men on the supply ship then used long poles with hooks on the ends to try to catch the men stranded in the sea, but to no avail. All hands aboard the Ocean Ranger perished, and at 3:38 a.m. on February 15, 1982, the rig capsized and sank to the floor of the Grand Banks.''

I have never heard of any rescue attempt that spotted live men. They were dead before any boat or helicopter had arrived. The rig also did not actually sink to the bottom but flipped over 180 degrees and was found floating. The flipping of such a large structure would have been quite violent to humans onboard. The crew was physically unable to abandon the rig by lifeboat because of a design flaw in the lifeboat lowering mechanism. The way the lifeboat's lowering system worked, was that there was a lowering mechanism attached to the rig that was operated from inside the lifeboats by pulling down on a cable that ran from the lowering mechanism through a small opening in the deck of the lifeboats. As someone inside the lifeboat pulled on this, the lifeboat would lower. It was found later that the design of the mechanism did not work past a certain angle of list, hence the crew was unable to abandon ship properly.

I tend to believe the explanation of management because their audience was not ignorant of rig operations. In addition, there was quite a bit of nepotism at the company and some of the lives lost were kin of higher ups. I believe the disaster was a direct result of ignorance of how the ballast control system worked and was compounded by the inability of the crew to abandon ship. Indirectly, I believe that the corporate culture created the situation. The rig designers were ODECO engineers and probably would have figured out what was wrong quite quickly with the ballast control system if they would have been contacted by the rig personnel, who because of this culture were reluctant to do.

It has been a quite long ago and I cannot swear my memory of the meeting is completely accurate. It was also my impression that that by the time the company heard anything about troubles on the rig it was already lost. I left the oil industry after about 3 years and this would account for any technical errors as I am far from an expert. It should also be remembered that these rigs were operated by oil men and not seaman. I do believe that there was a captain onboard since the rig was not towed between jobs but had it's own propulsion system. He would have been in charge only when the rig was not anchored which it was during the accident. -AND-

The last sentence in the correction is true. There was a captain aboard and the captain was not in command while the ship was stationary and drilling.

-END OF CUT-

I'm assuming the writer(s) meant well, as do I. Please drop me a note if you have any concerns.

JaeRae 09:15, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Hojima 22:38, 13 June 2007 (UTC) I think someone should add something about the Russian sailors who died trying to help the crew of the Ocean Ranger, they're barely ever talked about and were real heroes.

Vodkasim 21:05, 23 July 2007 (UTC) I think it's possible that Hojima has confused the Ocean Ranger with another incident. There are no Russian sailors listed as casualties in reports of the Ocean Ranger incident. In fact, there are no other casualties reported, besides the crew of the Ocean Ranger.

Which came first.....
On the subject of the actual capsizing.......

The Ranger had twelve large mooring cables, several of which were broken or severed on the ocean floor after the capsizing.

Did the the cables snap and then the rig capsized..... or did the rig snap the cables in the capsizing motion?

Pete318 (talk) 22:21, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

By "mooring cables," I assume that you're referring to the anchor chains. (And I would have thought 8 rather than 12--two from each corner--but I don't have all the design details handy.) But, to answer your question, as it says in the article per the inquest findings, the rig capsized because of a malfunctioning/misoperated ballast control system rather than a mooring system failure. So presumably the mooring system damage was caused by the capsizing.

ghaff (talk) 16:38, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

"Mooring Lines" was the technical term used in some reports. There were three on each corner of the rig for twelve in total. They consisted of the anchor, some chain and mostly cable.

“……The Ocean Ranger had a twelve point mooring system with twelve 45,000 pound main anchors. Each anchor was attached to 1650 feet of 3.25 inch link chain, which in turn was connected to 5600 feet of 3.5 inch wire rope….”(pg.14)

One report - the Commission's or perhaps the report for the Province's DOE - discussed the concept of locked winches on the mooring cables as opposed to constant force winches, ie those with a clutch mechanism which would limit the force on the cable.

Recommendation number 64 (page 158), mentions "....intentional slackening of anchor lines....."

There should not be any need for students of this catastrophe to make assumptions on which failed first..... the sequence of failure ought to have been included in at least one of the capsizing scenarios. While loss of stability was perhaps the precipitating factor in the disaster, the rig could not have rotated without shifting or breaking some of the mooring lines. But did they break during this rotation (capsizing), or did they break because some other factor (wave action, with locked winches?), thus permitting the rapid inverting of the rig?

All References from: Report one: the loss of the semisubmersible drill rig Ocean Ranger and its crew / Royal Commission on the Ocean Ranger Marine Disaster. by Royal Commission on the Ocean Ranger Marine Disaster (Canada). Ottawa : Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1984. ISBN: 0660116820 Bib #: 161809

Pete318 (talk) 22:02, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

For reference: (from Wikipedia article "Alexander Kielland wreck"

"....Suddenly the rig heeled over 30° and then stabilised. Five of the six anchor cables had broken, the one remaining cable was preventing the rig from capsizing. The list continued to increase and at 18.53 the remaining anchor cable snapped and the rig turned upside down....."

A multimedia animation of the capsizing does not include (visually) the role of the mooring cables or their sequence of failure (i.e. breakage). Is there a similar animation or simulation for the Ranger?

apparently(?) from

Pete318 (talk) 18:25, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

She
http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2010/12/ships.html

''As we’ve written on our blog, the personification of nonliving nouns (e.g., ships or nations) as “she” has fallen out of common usage. It’s now generally considered quaint or poetic.''

The Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition), as well as the style books of the Associated Press and theNew York Times, recommend using “it” or “its” to refer to ships.

In 2002, Lloyd’s List, the 276-year-old London-based shipping newspaper, officially dropped the gender personification and now refers to ships with the pronouns “it” and “its” instead of “she” and “her.”

Mike Stramba (talk) 11:34, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Full moon in the image
The size of the moon in the top right image appears rather large, could be edited. What do you think? AadaamS (talk) 08:55, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Victim list
The victim list here likely violates WP:NOTMEMORIAL and a general consensus against victim lists (see, e.g., WP:VICTIM, WP:VL, and WP:CASL). The victim names were added by an anonymous editor 9 years ago and sourced to a blog which, in turn, got those names from Memorials Online. As user-generated sites, they cannot be considered reliable sources. Unless there is an objection, I will shortly be removing this section. Please let me know it you think there are reasons to retain this. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 23:10, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
 * As there have been no objections after a few days, I have removed the unsourced/poorly sourced victim list. Eggishorn  (talk) (contrib) 20:22, 16 June 2021 (UTC)