# West India Line in North Sea



## DxbBob

I enjoyed reading O.M. Bugge’s 23 September 2013 SN post in which he recalls some of his experiences performing CAR or cargo insurance marine warranty surveys in the mid-1970s of shipments of heavy and voluminous cargo from Japan to Saudi Arabia aboard West India Line (“WIL”) multi-purpose ro-ro tramp ships. Back then Aramco was feverishly working to increase oil production to meet Petromin’s commitments for funding Saudi mega projects such as creation of Jubail city and industrial complex and establishing new gas gathering and processing systems needed to fuel the Government’s ambitious plans for industrial development and electrification of the Eastern Province. Aramco’s response involved construction of new facilities such as the Ju’Aymah gas plant and crude and LPG terminals and various ‘maintain potential’ projects such bringing an additional 24 onshore and offshore gas oil separation plants (GOSPs) on line. I remembered that such programs significantly increased shipments of oversized heavy equipment (e.g. gas oil separators, reactors, catalytic crackers, fractionating columns, distillation towers, coke drums, pipe racks, and other process vessels and prefabricated modules) to Eastern Province ports from manufacturers in Europe and the Far East; however, I didn’t know WIL participated in 1970s Aramco project shipping until I read O.M. Bugge’s post. 

During the period 1959 – 1968 WIL operated as many as four ex U.S. Navy LSTs. At some point in the early 1960s WIL acquired two open deck f’w’d drop ramp landing craft. It appears WIL sold the LSTs in 1968. Between April 1965 and August 1970, Bellinger Shipbuilding in Jacksonville, Florida, and Levingston Shipbuilding in Orange, Texas, each delivered five new builds to WIL. That ten ship fleet expansion was followed by the Inagua Surf (Bellinger hull no. 110, delivered in August 1975), Inagua Island (Bellinger hull no. 111, delivered in December 1976), and the Inagua Tide (Bellinger hull no. 114, delivered in September 1978). If the foregoing understandings are correct, it means at various times between 1971 and 1981 West India Industries, Inc. or its affiliated company, West India Carriers, Inc., both headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida, (marketed and collectively referred to as “West India Line” or “WIL”), operated as many as 20 short sea sized, roll-on/roll-off heavy-lift vessels designed for use in ports with difficult loading conditions – such as those then frequently encountered in the Caribbean – and serving the non-conference West Indies inter-island general cargo trade as well as the smaller end of the global heavy-lift shipping market. WIL ships were readily identifiable by the word “Inagua” in their names, an evocative reference to the southernmost district of the Bahamas and WIL’s seminal Caribbean trading range. 

*West India Industries, Inc. Ships*
Inagua Arrow 400 dwt LCT design
Inagua Rover 360 dwt LCT design
Inagua Wave 406 dwt, 38m x 10m, GT 343
Inagua Gull 1370 dwt
Inagua Crest 100m x 15m former LST-356
Inagua Foam m100m x 15m former LST
Inagua Cloud 650 dwt former LST
Inagua Shipper 100m x 15m former LST-678 & occasional cable layer (e.g. 1966 San Juan Islands cable at Fidalgo terminal, Decatur Island, for the Bonneville Power Admin.)
Inagua Pilot 5970 dwt LST design, GT 3085
Inagua Beaver GT 299
Inagua Espana 16,082 dwt
Inagua Tide 100.7m x 21.8m, stern ramp only
*Inagua Spray * 2000 dwt class (1884 dwt), 74m x 14m GT 1297, stern deck house 
*Inagua Bay* 2000 dwt class (2565 dwt), GT 757, 81.2m (255.4’) X 15.8m (51.8’)
*Inagua Light* 2000 dwt class (2208 dwt), GT 1436
*Inagua Sound *2000 dwt class, 81.5m (267.4’) x 15.6m (51.2’)
*Inagua Beach* 2000 dwt class
*Inagua Surf* 2000 dwt class (2184 dwt), 82m x 16m, GT 1281

*West India Carriers, Inc. Ships*
WISCO Trader, later *Inagua Trader II* 2000 dwt class (2173 dwt), 81m x 15m, GT 1414
WISCO Ranger, later *Inagua Ranger II* 2000 dwt class

The 1970s were also halcyon days for UK and Norwegian North Sea oil and gas exploitation. In 1964, Texas based offshore contractor Brown & Root had the one and only construction spread operating in the North Sea. A few years later offshore construction activity had expanded north into Norway’s Ekofisk oil field and spread across the south North Sea to include numerous UK gas finds (e.g. West Sole, Clipper and Leman). In the summer of 1970 five offshore contractors were operating an aggregate total of nine construction spreads in Ekofisk, the central North Sea (e.g. Argyil, Auk, Forties and Montrose Fields), and the gas fields of the south NS. In the summer of 1975 offshore construction work was underway in the north NS (e.g. Beryl, Brent, Dunlin, Ninian, and Thistle Fields) and nine contractors were operating a total of 35 offshore construction spreads throughout the North Sea. During those years the energy companies conducted exploration, appraisal and production well drilling operations: 30 drilling rigs were working in the North Sea in the summer of ‘73, 58 in the summer of ‘76, and 70 in the summer of ’77. The red-hot North Sea offshore activity between 1969 and 1974 created very high demand for OSVs. 

Houston based Brown & Root started laying subsea pipelines circa 1954 and I think New Orleans based J. Ray McDermott (my employer) laid its first subsea line in 1950. By the time these contractors first mobilized their construction spreads from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Sea they each had ac***ulated substantial experience from years of work in the GOM, Cook Inlet, Arabian Gulf, Java Sea, and South China Sea, jobs on which they typically used deck cargo barges (typically ranging in size from 140’ x 40’ x 9’ to 200’ x 50’ x 13’) to haul line pipe to their lay barges. Despite their experience, they found themselves ill-equipped for working in summertime North Sea conditions. The contractors started by using locally available small material barges, often only 30m x 11m x 2.5m. For example, when laying the Forties Field pipeline 110 miles to Cruden Bay in the summers of 1973 and 1974, two Brown & Root lay barges, BAR-324 and L.B. Meaders, used ten tug/barge pipe haul units to carry the 32-inch O.D. coated pipe from MK-Shand’s coating plant near the HiFab yard. The Frigg Transportation System comprised 60,000 twelve meter long joints of 32 inch O.D. pipe creating one 361 km long pipeline and second 360 km long pipeline. The system was installed in three years (1974 – 1977) by the BAR-324, ETPM 1601, and McDermott Lay Barge No. 27 plus two pipe bury barges and 60 tugs, supply boats and pipe transport vessels. In the mid-1970s Brown & Root alone had seven lay barges, six bury barges, two combination derrick/lay barges and three spud barges in the North Sea, requiring 40 supply boats to support them. 

The point is that project-critical pipe haul vessels were in high demand and short supply at that time, and the pipeline contractors turned to WIL’s heavy lift ro/ro vessels for relief. Several of WIL’s heavy lift vessels, believed to have included the slightly smaller. Inagua Gull and the so-called 2000 dwt class Inagua Surf, Inagua Light, Inagua Sound, and Inagua Trader II, were chartered to haul line pipe from Great Yarmouth, Peterhead, Invergordon, Leith and other coating yard ports. These triple screw CAT powered boats were distinctive looking due to their visor lift bows, forward and aft ro/ro ramps, and split deckhouses situated either forward or aft with a starboard side nav bridge and a port side bow lift control room. All accommodations, engine room and machinery spaces were below the open main deck. I thought these ships were equipped with a single bow thruster but I’m not sure that’s correct. 

Photos
1. Inagua Sound launching at Levingston Shipbuilding, Orange, Texas.
2. Inagua Surf loading pipe at Immingham 12 July 1982: photo Simonwp on Shipspotting.com
3. Inagua Surf at Great Yarmouth: photo Gary Markham on Shipspotting.com
4. Inagua Light departing Peterhead by Setumar
5. Inagua Gull dep. Peterhead w/ line pipe, McDermott LB in background: photo Setumar
6. McDermott LB23 with WIL pipe haul boat
7. Inagua Sound departing Levingston Shipbuilding September 1969


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## taffe65

DxbBob said:


> I enjoyed reading O.M. Bugge’s 23 September 2013 SN post in which he recalls some of his experiences performing CAR or cargo insurance marine warranty surveys in the mid-1970s of shipments of heavy and voluminous cargo from Japan to Saudi Arabia aboard West India Line (“WIL”) multi-purpose ro-ro tramp ships. Back then Aramco was feverishly working to increase oil production to meet Petromin’s commitments for funding Saudi mega projects such as creation of Jubail city and industrial complex and establishing new gas gathering and processing systems needed to fuel the Government’s ambitious plans for industrial development and electrification of the Eastern Province. Aramco’s response involved construction of new facilities such as the Ju’Aymah gas plant and crude and LPG terminals and various ‘maintain potential’ projects such bringing an additional 24 onshore and offshore gas oil separation plants (GOSPs) on line. I remembered that such programs significantly increased shipments of oversized heavy equipment (e.g. gas oil separators, reactors, catalytic crackers, fractionating columns, distillation towers, coke drums, pipe racks, and other process vessels and prefabricated modules) to Eastern Province ports from manufacturers in Europe and the Far East; however, I didn’t know WIL participated in 1970s Aramco project shipping until I read O.M. Bugge’s post.
> 
> During the period 1959 – 1968 WIL operated as many as four ex U.S. Navy LSTs. At some point in the early 1960s WIL acquired two open deck f’w’d drop ramp landing craft. It appears WIL sold the LSTs in 1968. Between April 1965 and August 1970, Bellinger Shipbuilding in Jacksonville, Florida, and Levingston Shipbuilding in Orange, Texas, each delivered five new builds to WIL. That ten ship fleet expansion was followed by the Inagua Surf (Bellinger hull no. 110, delivered in August 1975), Inagua Island (Bellinger hull no. 111, delivered in December 1976), and the Inagua Tide (Bellinger hull no. 114, delivered in September 1978). If the foregoing understandings are correct, it means at various times between 1971 and 1981 West India Industries, Inc. or its affiliated company, West India Carriers, Inc., both headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida, (marketed and collectively referred to as “West India Line” or “WIL”), operated as many as 20 short sea sized, roll-on/roll-off heavy-lift vessels designed for use in ports with difficult loading conditions – such as those then frequently encountered in the Caribbean – and serving the non-conference West Indies inter-island general cargo trade as well as the smaller end of the global heavy-lift shipping market. WIL ships were readily identifiable by the word “Inagua” in their names, an evocative reference to the southernmost district of the Bahamas and WIL’s seminal Caribbean trading range.
> 
> *West India Industries, Inc. Ships*
> Inagua Arrow 400 dwt LCT design
> Inagua Rover 360 dwt LCT design
> Inagua Wave 406 dwt, 38m x 10m, GT 343
> Inagua Gull 1370 dwt
> Inagua Crest 100m x 15m former LST-356
> Inagua Foam m100m x 15m former LST
> Inagua Cloud 650 dwt former LST
> Inagua Shipper 100m x 15m former LST-678 & occasional cable layer (e.g. 1966 San Juan Islands cable at Fidalgo terminal, Decatur Island, for the Bonneville Power Admin.)
> Inagua Pilot 5970 dwt LST design, GT 3085
> Inagua Beaver GT 299
> Inagua Espana 16,082 dwt
> Inagua Tide 100.7m x 21.8m, stern ramp only
> *Inagua Spray * 2000 dwt class (1884 dwt), 74m x 14m GT 1297, stern deck house
> *Inagua Bay* 2000 dwt class (2565 dwt), GT 757, 81.2m (255.4’) X 15.8m (51.8’)
> *Inagua Light* 2000 dwt class (2208 dwt), GT 1436
> *Inagua Sound *2000 dwt class, 81.5m (267.4’) x 15.6m (51.2’)
> *Inagua Beach* 2000 dwt class
> *Inagua Surf* 2000 dwt class (2184 dwt), 82m x 16m, GT 1281
> 
> *West India Carriers, Inc. Ships*
> WISCO Trader, later *Inagua Trader II* 2000 dwt class (2173 dwt), 81m x 15m, GT 1414
> WISCO Ranger, later *Inagua Ranger II* 2000 dwt class
> 
> The 1970s were also halcyon days for UK and Norwegian North Sea oil and gas exploitation. In 1964, Texas based offshore contractor Brown & Root had the one and only construction spread operating in the North Sea. A few years later offshore construction activity had expanded north into Norway’s Ekofisk oil field and spread across the south North Sea to include numerous UK gas finds (e.g. West Sole, Clipper and Leman). In the summer of 1970 five offshore contractors were operating an aggregate total of nine construction spreads in Ekofisk, the central North Sea (e.g. Argyil, Auk, Forties and Montrose Fields), and the gas fields of the south NS. In the summer of 1975 offshore construction work was underway in the north NS (e.g. Beryl, Brent, Dunlin, Ninian, and Thistle Fields) and nine contractors were operating a total of 35 offshore construction spreads throughout the North Sea. During those years the energy companies conducted exploration, appraisal and production well drilling operations: 30 drilling rigs were working in the North Sea in the summer of ‘73, 58 in the summer of ‘76, and 70 in the summer of ’77. The red-hot North Sea offshore activity between 1969 and 1974 created very high demand for OSVs.
> 
> Houston based Brown & Root started laying subsea pipelines circa 1954 and I think New Orleans based J. Ray McDermott (my employer) laid its first subsea line in 1950. By the time these contractors first mobilized their construction spreads from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Sea they each had ac***ulated substantial experience from years of work in the GOM, Cook Inlet, Arabian Gulf, Java Sea, and South China Sea, jobs on which they typically used deck cargo barges (typically ranging in size from 140’ x 40’ x 9’ to 200’ x 50’ x 13’) to haul line pipe to their lay barges. Despite their experience, they found themselves ill-equipped for working in summertime North Sea conditions. The contractors started by using locally available small material barges, often only 30m x 11m x 2.5m. For example, when laying the Forties Field pipeline 110 miles to Cruden Bay in the summers of 1973 and 1974, two Brown & Root lay barges, BAR-324 and L.B. Meaders, used ten tug/barge pipe haul units to carry the 32-inch O.D. coated pipe from MK-Shand’s coating plant near the HiFab yard. The Frigg Transportation System comprised 60,000 twelve meter long joints of 32 inch O.D. pipe creating one 361 km long pipeline and second 360 km long pipeline. The system was installed in three years (1974 – 1977) by the BAR-324, ETPM 1601, and McDermott Lay Barge No. 27 plus two pipe bury barges and 60 tugs, supply boats and pipe transport vessels. In the mid-1970s Brown & Root alone had seven lay barges, six bury barges, two combination derrick/lay barges and three spud barges in the North Sea, requiring 40 supply boats to support them.
> 
> The point is that project-critical pipe haul vessels were in high demand and short supply at that time, and the pipeline contractors turned to WIL’s heavy lift ro/ro vessels for relief. Several of WIL’s heavy lift vessels, believed to have included the slightly smaller. Inagua Gull and the so-called 2000 dwt class Inagua Surf, Inagua Light, Inagua Sound, and Inagua Trader II, were chartered to haul line pipe from Great Yarmouth, Peterhead, Invergordon, Leith and other coating yard ports. These triple screw CAT powered boats were distinctive looking due to their visor lift bows, forward and aft ro/ro ramps, and split deckhouses situated either forward or aft with a starboard side nav bridge and a port side bow lift control room. All accommodations, engine room and machinery spaces were below the open main deck. I thought these ships were equipped with a single bow thruster but I’m not sure that’s correct.
> 
> Photos
> 1. Inagua Sound launching at Levingston Shipbuilding, Orange, Texas.
> 2. Inagua Surf loading pipe at Immingham 12 July 1982: photo Simonwp on Shipspotting.com
> 3. Inagua Surf at Great Yarmouth: photo Gary Markham on Shipspotting.com
> 4. Inagua Light departing Peterhead by Setumar
> 5. Inagua Gull dep. Peterhead w/ line pipe, McDermott LB in background: photo Setumar
> 6. McDermott LB23 with WIL pipe haul boat
> 7. Inagua Sound departing Levingston Shipbuilding September 1969
> View attachment 690776
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> View attachment 690781
> View attachment 690786


By Christ that's a mouthful, well presented sir!


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## captainconfusion

That's quite a history, and your career, must have spanned many a responsibilities. I trust you have had your headaches, but never the less enjoyed your working life??? 
Are you the man behind the story, or the teller of events??? What ever you are in the Know???


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## DxbBob

I’m behind the story: the 50 years I worked in offshore construction was spent onshore dealing with insurance, charters, contracts and subcontracts. 
I’ve been curious about “Inagua boats” in offshore line pipe feeder service from when I first heard of it, which must have been about 40 years ago, but I didn’t have the time or opportunity to learn more about it as we didn’t use these heavy lift ships in the regions where I was based. Mr. Bugge’s post piqued my curiosity and now that I’m retired I thought I’d revisit the subject and share what I learned, hoping that SN members who worked aboard WIL ships in the North Sea will take a minute and share their experiences.
Cheers.


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## taffe65

DxbBob said:


> I’m behind the story: the 50 years I worked in offshore construction was spent onshore dealing with insurance, charters, contracts and subcontracts.
> I’ve been curious about “Inagua boats” in offshore line pipe feeder service from when I first heard of it, which must have been about 40 years ago, but I didn’t have the time or opportunity to learn more about it as we didn’t use these heavy lift ships in the regions where I was based. Mr. Bugge’s post piqued my curiosity and now that I’m retired I thought I’d revisit the subject and share what I learned, hoping that SN members who worked aboard WIL ships in the North Sea will take a minute and share their experiences.
> Cheers.


I,m not of offshore/ oil rig stock (ex British merchant navy engineer) but I watched a do***entary called " Rigs of Nigg" which was delightful viewing ,it was about building a rig in record time in the Highlands of Scotland in the 1970s. The workforce were impressed by the American man management skills which greatly helped in getting the rig built on time and spec.


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