Nomad Mariner: Cyclone Melanie on William E Bright

Wouldn’t you know it I join the same vessel again! Only this time it’s as Chief Mate instead of Master, this surprised me but not near as much as the Master Mike who I met at the hotel in Perth. Both of us up to that point thought we were to be the Master. Once again my attempts to accrue sea time for my master one are thwarted. The upside was that we were to have a very experienced crew aboard and that always makes things easier.

On joining the vessel we find out that we have one more trip to the rig Nan Hai 6 and this is to be our last as we will then be working with the Rankin Platform which has a new drilling program. The trip to NW Cape was straight forward and gave us a chance to settle in to life back at sea. When we were finished with the cargo ops for Nan Hai 6 and the construction vessel Toisa Proteus we were ordered to steam to the Jack Bates, a drilling rig situated about 115 nautical miles west of Dampier. It is drilling in very deep water, 1250 meters, just goes to show where the oil companies are looking for oil and gas these days, deep water is always a logistical nightmare.

Our only concern with steaming to the Jack Bates was the approach of Tropical Cyclone Melanie, which had just been named and was heading straight for the rig. Our Cyclone preparations were well under way with the crew lashing and securing the vessels equipment, covers were put on the fuel vents and the spurling pipes were sealed. Liferaft lashings were frapped up tight and generally the vessel made secure for a rough ride.

We were going to the Jack Bates to be standby vessel so that the rig could evacuate all their personnel. Of course that meant we had to stay until the last chopper and then make a run for it. By 0600 with the cyclone only 150 nautical miles away, making 6 knots, the choices were quite limited and we still had to wait for three more choppers. At 2000, with the sky a dull shiny grey, and a large lumpy swell coming in from the North East, the last chopper was off with out even a good bye, we quickly assessed the situation with the latest weather report and decided to head in a North Westerly direction. The Cyclone was predicted to head in a SSW direction and our thinking was that the cyclone will stay on that course and if anything recurve in to the coast. So a NW course would lead us out to the safe Hemisphere and allow us to circle back around behind the cyclone to return to the rig.

A NW course unfortunately took us beam on to the combined SW swell with a counter NE swell from the cyclone, very uncomfortable making sleep nearly impossible.

By Midnight we knew things were going to be close, the wind was up to 40 knots and the latest cyclone forecast had the Melanie’s path heading more towards the west than the south. At this point we would still pass ahead by about 60 nm but it would be rough.

At 0800 when I came back up on the bridge for my watch, I knew we were in the thick of it. The Cyclone had made a significant alteration of course to the west and we were no more than 10 nm from centre of the storm. We had at least 70 knots of wind, though it could have been more as the anemometer is not at all accurate with high wind speeds. The seas were very confused with spray being blown clean off the top of the swell and wind streaks running down the face of every wave. Visibility was down to less than 10 nm and the radar was next to useless for collision avoidance with all the clutter on the screen. Fortunately we were at this stage running away from the cyclone centre, almost on a reciprocal track. The wind and sea were sweeping over us from the port side and we knew we were going to be Ok, as every hour took us further away from the trouble. By Midday we were 50 miles from the cyclone center and the wind had dropped considerably. Our course continued to take us further away and we were able to start bringing the vessels heading more around to the east, so as to start circling back to the rig. At midnight the conditions were comparatively smooth and we were able to all get some good sleep.