# SEMAC 1 - End of an era



## 5036

The legendary semi submersible pipelay barge SEMAC 1 was beached at Alang on 8th January 2016 for disposal. She was built to do one job, lay the 36" SHELL EXPRO FLAGS (Far north Liquids and Associated Gas System) gasline from the Brent Field to St Fergus gas terminal which paid for her construction. She ended up working until last year, 40+ years. She was built for Shell Expro and J Ray MacDermott from which her name was derived.

Two innovative vessels, the Regal Service and the Royal Service were built at the same time by Zapata Offshore (by Ulstein?) to supply her with pipe from three stacks, they had two moving carriages that moved the central and forward stacks aft to allow the cranes to pick up pipelengths in the safest, most workable way. The FLAGS job paid for them. Royal Service was scrapped some time ago but Regal Service is now Energy Miner and is a suction dredger chasing minerals and gems from the South American seabed.

SEMAC 1 had sister semi-submersible laybarges, Santa Fe Choctaw I and II (her forebears) and Viking Piper (now LB200), Castoro Sei followed, she is still working.


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## Ken Wood

Glad to hear Semac 1 has gone. I've nothing but bad memories of that barge. Unable to cope with anything except good weather, and manned by personnel with no North Sea experience and with a gung-ho attitude that was very dangerous. Designed , as you say, to do a job, which she did, just. Should have been scrapped directly after.


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## Inmeshedateleven

*Semac 1 ,,,,,,,KEN,it seems my memories........*



Ken Wood said:


> Glad to hear Semac 1 has gone. I've nothing but bad memories of that barge. Unable to cope with anything except good weather, and manned by personnel with no North Sea experience and with a gung-ho attitude that was very dangerous. Designed , as you say, to do a job, which she did, just. Should have been scrapped directly after.


are slightly different to yours ,,in that she was a working barge and not much stopped it laying pipe,,,,now etpm 1601 if someone wanted the easy life ,,we had more down time than laying pipe,,and as for the castora sei my memory is vague ,and the vaguer the better,, last time on semac was around 96/97 in South China Sea ,700 kilometre pipeline,,for me best jobs were in early seventies with the yanks on 323/324/279 etc etc regards trev


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## P Correll

Ken Wood said:


> Glad to hear Semac 1 has gone. I've nothing but bad memories of that barge. Unable to cope with anything except good weather, and manned by personnel with no North Sea experience and with a gung-ho attitude that was very dangerous. Designed , as you say, to do a job, which she did, just. Should have been scrapped directly after.


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## P Correll

And by the way, I have always paid my USA taxes because I made enormous wages working on the Semac 1 We are all in this together. I have always been a progressive Democrat and have voted according since 1973.


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