I have just finished work and this last trip was interesting to say the least. When I was called up by the office it was with the original idea for me to take the Day Tide to Tunisia, North Africa via Cape Town. This sounded like a great trip and I was really looking forward to it. However on arrival in Darwin to pick up the ship I was informed that the delivery voyage had been cancelled and we were going to be doing spot charters around the coast. A bit disappointed as I was all geared up for an ocean passage. We continued doing two weeks work at the rig Ocean Bounty and then even though the clients, Woodside, wanted us to continue working with them we had to go. We developed a leak in the port Stern tube and this was a dry docking job. With a near new vessel, the company was not going to risk damage at such an early stage in life. Nearest dry dock was back in Dampier but they were booked up for the next month. The other options were Singapore 1680 nautical miles away or Fremantle 1610 nautical miles away. The company had possible tenders for the vessel in Australia so it did not make sense steaming to Singapore when the return journey was twice as long as that from Fremantle. So we set off for Freo and began making preparations to pull the vessel out.
This was to be my eighth dry docking in the offshore industry and I must say while they are involved it is really quite easy and of course practice makes easy. This docking was to go smoothly and we achieved a lot of good work. Having been to his yard before when I brought the Sam S. Allgood here for her ten year docking, I can honestly say I like the dock yard as they are accommodating and efficient, which makes our job so much easier.
The most nerve wracking dry docking for me was when I was master aboard the Duyfken and we took her out of the water at Simons town South Africa.
We had pulled up at the navy docks on the 10th of November to make the vessel ready to be lifted out of the water by the navies synchro lift, essentially a big platform that is suspended on wires from winches evenly spaced along the finger jetties either side. This platform has railway tracks and the carriage that supports the vessel out of the water the carriage is rolled along onto the platform, secured and then submerged until the vessel can float over the top. When the vessel is in position, the platform is raised by all the winches, synchronised to lift together (hence synchro lift) and the boat is then pushed on the tracks to the hard stand where work is carried out.
Sounds easy and it is, it is a very practical and efficient method of working on vessels the only difficulty for me is that we were putting a four million dollar irreplaceable vessel into the dock and I had to get it right.
The 12th rolled up when the crew and I took the vessel off the pontoon where we had been tied up for the night. It was a short motor around to the dock entrance and the wind was blowing a good forty plus knots. It was so strong I had difficulty turning the vessel around into the wind so that I could steam to the dock. That was one of the less redeeming feature about the little Duyfken, she was difficult to manoeuvre under engines at slow speed, with so much windage she would go side on to the wind and just stay there making it a right struggle to turn. Thankfully the dry dock was aligned into the prevailing wind so I had one less worry as a beam wind would have meant moving into the dock on an angle and that would have been impossible. As it was the pressure was on me to ensure I kept the bow dead into the wind, if I had allowed the wind to catch one side as we approached, the Duyfken would have sheared away and made a solid impact on the dock sides with resulting damage. The whole time I was master of the vessel I was always worried about damaging her as it would have taken a long time to make repairs and we did not have any time to spare to make the scheduled arrival in Holland.
We made it into the dock and fortunately this was a dock where the dockmaster took control of the vessel by mooring lines on large capstans the moment the bow passed the dock entrance. So once we had their lines secured fore and aft I could turn the engines off and relax. From that point it all went smoothly and we were able to carry out a very good docking for the vessel.
I have no doubt that in my career their will be plenty more times when I will be required to take a vessel to dry dock but the time with the Duyfken was the most tense and memorable.
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