# Offshore Australia 1960s - 1970s



## DxbBob

In a nostalgic mood I share a friend’s notes regarding a trip he made to Bass Strait circa 1970, back when we both worked for Ingram Contractors based in Harvey, Louisiana. At that time, Ingram was installing offshore platforms and submarine pipelines for Esso – BHP and the population of Oz was about 10 million – slightly more than the population of New York City then -- 90 percent of whom lived along the eastern coast. Australia is rich in natural assets, and it was said back then that all it lacked was people. My friend wrote:

“On a subsequent trip to Australia, I rode a 65-foot crewboat across Bass Strait to our pipelaying barge, working between Australia and Tasmania. In the South Pacific, different from the Atlantic, the ratio of wave height to the period between swells was 50 to 1, and the 20- to 25-foot seas we encountered were 1000 feet apart. I was at the wheel of the crewboat, and was it fun, climbing straight up to one crest, turning hard to starboard to switchback down the other side, then hard to port to meet the next wave full in the face. The deckhand sat in the adjoining passenger compartment aft of the wheelhouse and was actively and repeatedly throwing up in a wash pan he held in his lap. I remember the Captain watched him and laughed and hollered, “Spew, you beauty”. 
I stayed on the pipelaying barge out in Bass Strait for a few days, and while I was there, there were always little brown penguins on the deck. The riggers made pets of them. There were cases and cases of Modess sanitary napkins on the barge, because the divers used them as air filters in their breathing apparatus.”


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## DxbBob

Time to dust the cobwebs from that shoe box full of old photos.
I’m unable to find a photograph of Ingram Derrick Barge 7 being constructed at Evans Deakin Industries, Kangaroo Point, Brisbane. I’d appreciate a picture if any members have one that can be posted. To be clear, I’m looking for pictures of *INGRAM DERRICK BARGE 7 *which was built circa 1969 as the yard’s hull no. 77. She became *McDERMOTT DERRICK BARGE NO. 21* in November 1971 and later (sometime in 1996?) became *COMANCHE* for Global Industries.
This was way back in the late 1960s when a gentleman named John Bell served as shipyard manager for Evans Deakin. John himself was new to the company and very keen to book a project that could utilize more fully the steel-fabrication capacity of the shipyard and help absorb some of the fixed overheads. Consequently, when a tender was lodged with the Australian Shipbuilding Board for an offshore derrick barge for Ingram Contractors of the USA, he went after it with all of his considerable energy. The barge carried a 600 ton fully-rotating Clyde crane fixed atop a pedestal at her stern and accommodations on board for over 100 people. Overtime I came to learn that the Australian Shipbuilding Board took a great deal of convincing that this additional project could be carried out without adversely impacting already-late existing orders, but John Bell eventually won on condition that an entirely new management team and separate labor force be employed. The Ingram DB7 contract included an incentive for early delivery which Evans Deakin won. So much for the serious business.

I’ll close this post by sharing more recollections of my Ingram colleague, notes he made some 30 years after a trip to Evans Deakin related to the DB7 project. He was retired when he wrote these thoughts and in the three decades that elapsed between his trip and his memoir we both had settled down, had one step forward two steps back careers, and generally grown into 'sadder but wiser’ offshore construction hands. He’s passed now but his recounting of that trip to Australia still makes me smile.
“In January 1970, I flew from New Orleans to Brisbane, Australia, where Ingram was having a 400-foot, 600-ton capacity derrick barge built at Evans Deakin Shipyard. A total of 41 hours had elapsed from when I boarded in New Orleans until I deplaned in Brisbane, and we went immediately into meetings all day. At the end of the day, I was taken to a favorite watering hole of the shipyard people, an open air pub with lots of shade trees and a long bar. The Australians love to drink beer and they love to play bar games. After about an hour of this, I noticed a lot of cars pulling into the parking lot. Women poured into the place and sat at tables with umbrellas over them, while we continued on at the bar. After a couple more hours, I asked why we weren’t going over to ‘chat them up’, as they say down there. The reply I got was that the custom was to let them stay by themselves until a short time before the 10 p.m. closing time. By then, the women in the place would have fed themselves and spent their own money on drinks. Male chauvinism was alive and well in Australia back then, and we less-chauvinistic Yanks were very much appreciated by the Australian ‘Sheilas’.
“During one of the drinking bouts I participated in, I discovered their custom of ‘shouting a round’. This meant that, when it came around to your turn, you were to shout a round, meaning to buy a round of drinks for everyone at the table. And when someone else shouted a round, it was considered in poor form to refuse. This discipline was strongly, religiously adhered to. I was drinking rum and cokes, which were admittedly fairly small, but we drank 23 rounds at an average of 10-1/2 minutes per round. One of the men was an Australian Mormon, a teetotaler, who drank orange squash, kind of an orangeade. He was giggling so much by the end that I swore he was intoxicated on that stuff. On the way back to the hotel, I stopped with the agent at his house for a nightcap and, as we sat at the kitchen table, he told me, ‘A kitchen mate is the best kind of mate’.
“There are two kinds of kangaroos down there. The smaller, gray one is a Wallaby, and the other one is called the “big red ‘roo”. I saw a red ‘roo jump on the roof of a house on the outskirts of Brisbane.
“Melbourne is on the southeast corner, Sydney is midway up the east coast, and Brisbane is north of that. Up the coast an hour from Brisbane was a small settlement called Surfer’s Paradise, inside the Great Barrier Reef. There were very few two-story structures, apartments and such; most of the little town was made up of single story shops and restaurants. A favorite sandwich was a variety of hamburgers, many of which had fried egg included on the ground meat patty. The Tourism Board sponsored Meter Maids, long-legged, nicely-tanned, shapely ladies in skimpy bathing suits and high heels, who walked around town taking coins from a small purse on a long strap over their shoulder and depositing the coins in expired parking meters. 
“I went to a game reserve in the hills west of Brisbane while I was there. As I stood there in the grass, an emu came over the hill, running at me as fast as a car. If I had known to equate emus with the mean-tempered ostriches I encountered in Kruger Park south of Capetown five years later, I would have run for my life. As it happened, the emu ran right up to me and stopped with his beak in my face. He could have taken my head off, but he was only looking for a handout. That day, I held a koala; he was as skinny as a cat, but his thick, gauzy fur made him look round. Koala, in Aborigine, means “no water”; they get this name from the fact that they subsist on eucalyptus, digesting the juice from the leaves they suck on. Eucalyptus is a form of tranquilizing narcotic, and the koala I held that day was at peace with the world.”


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## reefrat

Worked for Ingrams at Barries Beach in 1965, Head honcho was what I later found out to be a ******* called Artis Howard, his command of the English language was less than firm, he spoke some kind of incomprehensible dialect that only repeated queries made sense. He fancied himself as a bit of a wild man and got drinking in the Welshpool pub big time, He got into a barney with a local, no doubt caused by a misunderstanding of his dialect and big mistake, he produced a knife, a big nono in those days in OZ, to stop him getting a group kicking I grabbed him and ran out the door and into his ute. My reward for saving his sorry **** was to be summarily fired by him next morning, took me a long long time to trust anyone from Louisania.


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## DxbBob

reefrat said:


> Worked for Ingrams at Barries Beach in 1965, Head honcho was what I later found out to be a ******* called Artis Howard, his command of the English language was less than firm, he spoke some kind of incomprehensible dialect that only repeated queries made sense. He fancied himself as a bit of a wild man and got drinking in the Welshpool pub big time, He got into a barney with a local, no doubt caused by a misunderstanding of his dialect and big mistake, he produced a knife, a big nono in those days in OZ, to stop him getting a group kicking I grabbed him and ran out the door and into his ute. My reward for saving his sorry **** was to be summarily fired by him next morning, took me a long long time to trust anyone from Louisania.


I’m sorry that happened to you, I mean getting sacked after saving the guy from an ass whipping. That’s the trouble with going out for a black and tan with a supervisor after work: sometimes the guy turns out to be a two pot screaming alco, but you won’t know that until he’s off his face at 8pm and needs rescuing! The really iffy thing about that bloke, the truly sobering part of your experience, is that he was carrying a knife ... I mean, who the hell does that?! 
A guy like that is meant to drink with the flies, not his mates. If one believes everything happens for a reason, then the positive take away from your anecdote is you were better off getting away from that guy. I say that because whatever peculiar mental disorder, whatever eccentricity of his personality, that it was that told the guy it made sense for him to carry a knife into a pub where he should have known he’d be the stranger, the “guest patron”, amongst a bunch of locals is the same kind of psychological blind spot that makes an otherwise normal looking bloke dangerous on the job or behind the wheel of a vehicle (or even in a poker game). It’s probably best that you left that job when you did!
By the way, do you think maybe the guy could have been working for Global Marine Australasia P/L., the company operating Glomar III, or one of Esso – BHP’s other drilling related contractors, e.g. well logging, cementing, drilling fluids, geophysical or seismic surveyors, or even a boat company (Tidewater might have been supporting drilling)? I mention that because, as far as I know, Ingram arrived in Australia in 1967 and I don’t think Transfield would be doing anything quite as early as 1965. Drilling might have been the game, it started 27 December 1964 when the drill ship _Glomar III_ began exploration drilling on what became the Barracouta field and by mid-April 1965 Esso would have had an idea of just how lucky they were and exploration drilling would have continued with some enthusiasm for the next several years.
Cheers..


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## reefrat

DxbBob said:


> I’m sorry that happened to you, I mean getting sacked after saving the guy from an ass whipping. That’s the trouble with going out for a black and tan with a supervisor after work: sometimes the guy turns out to be a two pot screaming alco, but you won’t know that until he’s off his face at 8pm and needs rescuing! The really iffy thing about that bloke, the truly sobering part of your experience, is that he was carrying a knife ... I mean, who the hell does that?!
> A guy like that is meant to drink with the flies, not his mates. If one believes everything happens for a reason, then the positive take away from your anecdote is you were better off getting away from that guy. I say that because whatever peculiar mental disorder, whatever eccentricity of his personality, that it was that told the guy it made sense for him to carry a knife into a pub where he should have known he’d be the stranger, the “guest patron”, amongst a bunch of locals is the same kind of psychological blind spot that makes an otherwise normal looking bloke dangerous on the job or behind the wheel of a vehicle (or even in a poker game). It’s probably best that you left that job when you did!
> By the way, do you think maybe the guy could have been working for Global Marine Australasia P/L., the company operating Glomar III, or one of Esso – BHP’s other drilling related contractors, e.g. well logging, cementing, drilling fluids, geophysical or seismic surveyors, or even a boat company (Tidewater might have been supporting drilling)? I mention that because, as far as I know, Ingram arrived in Australia in 1967 and I don’t think Transfield would be doing anything quite as early as 1965. Drilling might have been the game, it started 27 December 1964 when the drill ship _Glomar III_ began exploration drilling on what became the Barracouta field and by mid-April 1965 Esso would have had an idea of just how lucky they were and exploration drilling would have continued with some enthusiasm for the next several years.
> Cheers..


The date may be wrong,, We were building the first jackets and had just started to load out the first onto the dumb barge, Definiteiy Ingrams, maybe 1966, And some one just suggested the the knife man's name was Otis, not Artis,, goes to show how thick his accent was.


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## reefrat

reefrat said:


> The date may be wrong,, We were building the first jackets and had just started to load out the first onto the dumb barge, Definiteiy Ingrams, maybe 1966, And some one just suggested the the knife man's name was Otis, not Artis,, goes to show how thick his accent was.


March 69,, The seismic ship Western Spruce blew up near by while loading supplies including a full tanker of LOX


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## DxbBob

reefrat said:


> March 69,, The seismic ship Western Spruce blew up near by while loading supplies including a full tanker of LOX


Yes, I understand she suffered explosions and fire on the evening of 22 March 1969 while loading or just after loading liquid oxygen from a road tanker on the wharf. Three dead and 20 injured – a real tragedy.


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## DxbBob

DxbBob said:


> Yes, I understand she suffered explosions and fire on the evening of 22 March 1969 while loading or just after loading liquid oxygen from a road tanker on the wharf. Three dead and 20 injured – a real tragedy.


Article from the Canberra Times, Saturday 30 August 1969, regarding the WESTERN SPRUCE explosion. Sorry about the format ....

[newspaper article starts]
Western Spruce 
explosion
finding
MELBOURNE,
— Four companies in
volved in the operation
of the survey ship
Western Spruce were
responsible for the ex
plosion which killed
three men and injured
20 others, a court of
marine inquiry found
today.
One of the men who
died was also partly to
blame, Judge Dunn said in
his findings. He said
Charles Young, 35, of
Wallace Street, Preston,
had caused liquid oxygen
to escape by using a tool
to force a valve.
The ship was rocked at
Port Welshpool on March
22 by explosions after the
oxygen mixed with the
ship's fuel.
The three men who died
were Young, Maxwell
****, 38, of Eisenhower
Street, East Preston, and
a South African, Ian Mee
kan.
The accident happened
after a road tanker had dis
charged 100,000 cu-ft of
liquid oxygen into a special
tank fixed to the ship's steel
deck.
During the inquiry, which
sat for 42 days, evidence
was heard from experts on
Fix this textchemicals, explosives, ship's
safety and surveyors.
The widow of Young, Mrs
Carmel Young, said after
the judgment that she did
not know what she would
do next.
"I'm leaving all that up
to the solicitors", she said.
[newspaper article ends]


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## DxbBob

reefrat said:


> The date may be wrong,, We were building the first jackets and had just started to load out the first onto the dumb barge, Definiteiy Ingrams, maybe 1966, And some one just suggested the the knife man's name was Otis, not Artis,, goes to show how thick his accent was.


Yes, I reckon 1965 was a bit early. 
I hadn’t realized the role Transfield played in the initial phase of Bass Strait development: your post made me curious and when I looked it up I found that between 1967 and 1969, Transfield fabricated five platforms at Barry Beach: Barracouta, Marlin, Halibut, Kingfish, and Kingfish B, employing up to 250 people at Barry Beach at peak periods. 
I infer from some captions in an oil and gas history presentation on Transfield’s web site that Transfield’s management had mixed feelings about dealing with the Yanks. I quote: 
“As usual, Transfield adopted imaginative work practices. Antonio Lupacchini, then a senior construction executive, remembers that ‘the Americans showed us how to build an oil platform (and smoke big cigars) ... and we showed them how the whole exercise could be improved’.”
They are obviously putting a positive spin on it.


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## DxbBob

Does someone know what the picture below and the one in the gallery show? The location is Bass Strait, the period is the late 1960s.
I believe the pictures show:
a) the “work barge” is INGRAM JET BARGE No. 1, completed late 1968/early 1969 as yard hull no. 48 by Adelaide Ship Construction;
b) the tugboat EILEEN B. INGRAM; and
c) the Barracouta platform.




  








Barracouta pipelay.png




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DxbBob


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Nov 23, 2020


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1

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barracouta
pipelay




a 450mm diameter gas pipeline and a 150mm diameter oil/LPG pipeline connect Barracouta platform...


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## Rigbuilder

I worked on Derrick barge 3 as a rigger building the marlin and halibut platforms in 1968/69. DB 5 & 7 were laying pipelines at that time with the jet barge following along. 
nothing of this size had been seen in australia before.
We travelled out of lakes entrance on steel crew boats built for the job. The helicopters were reserved for the BHP engineers
The Americans were crazy and lived on a diet of coffee so thick you could pave a road with it and we’re so hyped up as to be unpredictable. I swear some of them were there because they got drunk in Louisiana and found themselves on a plane to Australia the next morning.
They did not like men of colour and refused to work with a full blood Māori diver.
DB3 was towed out to Australia by the Eileen B tug with two supply barges one on top of the other, towed behind.


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## DxbBob

Rigbuilder said:


> I worked on Derrick barge 3 as a rigger building the marlin and halibut platforms in 1968/69. DB 5 & 7 were laying pipelines at that time with the jet barge following along.
> nothing of this size had been seen in australia before.
> We travelled out of lakes entrance on steel crew boats built for the job. The helicopters were reserved for the BHP engineers
> The Americans were crazy and lived on a diet of coffee so thick you could pave a road with it and we’re so hyped up as to be unpredictable. I swear some of them were there because they got drunk in Louisiana and found themselves on a plane to Australia the next morning.
> They did not like men of colour and refused to work with a full blood Māori diver.
> DB3 was towed out to Australia by the Eileen B tug with two supply barges one on top of the other, towed behind.


Your recollections of the Ingram Contractors Australia Pty Ltd (1967 to November 1971) and McDermott Australia P/L (Nov. 1971 onwards) offshore construction operations in Esso-BHP's Bass Strait fields mirror my own. 
I remember their uproar if the barge ran out of their beloved "dark roast" Nawlins chicory and coffee blend and how delighted they were the first time they had a "shrimp boil" with Australian tiger prawns instead of Louisiana's more petite 21 to 25 per pound shrimp. 
I note your comment about men of color and the Maori diver. I remember that many of those hands were formerly farmers or fishermen, or were the sons of farmers and fishermen, who had little or no exposure to life outside their home parishes in Louisiana. Few had ever flown before making the 9300 mile trip to Australia (excluding bush flights over Louisiana marshes in a Cessna float plane or Super Widgeon amphib) and what they knew of life outside the States they probably learned while serving in the armed forces..
I tend to forget the "anti" sentiments of the late 1960s in the States - the country was rife with pro and anti segregation strife, increasingly strident anti Vietnam war protests, and organized confusion over the hippies. From the management's point of view, what the American barge hands lacked in education and social skills they hopefully made up for in work ethic. They took their work seriously because a surprising number of them were a son, brother or other relative of a superintendent, foreman or leaderman working for the same company, even on the same barge. That "clan" environment might have made recruiting easier but it had the long term negative effect of creating cliques among the crew, encouraging subjective rather than merit-based workplace privilege, and exporting and preserving various kinds of bigotry. A lot of that negative behavior was a symptomatic of the times and there were Aussie hands (and labor unions) with similar feelings about Asian seafarers or indigenous Australians. I want to believe things have improved since then. 
Yes, the tugs EILEEN B. INGRAM and PHILLIP F. INGRAM were mobilized to Welshpool atop piggy-backed cargo barges in a tandem tow with DB3. Smit International's tug ZWARTE ZEE(Black Sea) was the tow boat.


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## Rigbuilder

Thank you dxb bob for your reply. It was the Swartze zee that towed them out and on my very first day out was the last day the zwartze zee attended db3. She sailed of east towards New Zealand I think. I couldn’t remember exactly which vessels came out on that tow. Thank you for the photos. All mine were stolen along with other precious items in a burglary. You are correct about the racism towards aboriginals and asians in australia at the time, however I think attitudes have changed for the better here although there are still holdouts who will never accept views to the contrary. I sailed on the DB3 tow from Barrie’s beach to Brisbane when she went into dry dock. I don’t know what happened to her after that. I read somewhere that DB5 ended up wrecked on the west Australian coast. I was interested in your explanation of the American crew and their life experiences and I can understand that and on reflection it all makes sense. On the work ethic, they could not accept the fact that Australian crew could go on strike and leave the vessel as the welders did on one occasion. The Americans went on a go slow strike once but that was about as far as it went with them.


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## DxbBob

I think you’re right about things having improved since 1967 – 1970 plus. I remember how impressed my colleagues were when they returned from Oz to our office across the river from New Orleans. I listened intently as they spoke of the 41 or so hours long trip from New Orleans to the East Coast of Australia and the quaint country they discovered when they finally arrived . . . a vast country rich in all kinds of assets except people (what was the population back then, about 10 million?). A 19-year-old welder’s helper in Ingram’s Harvey, Louisiana fab yard at the time, I listen with rapt admiration as guys returning from Australia spoke of eating hamburgers topped with a fried egg, drinking beer and “shouting rounds” in open air pubs that closed at 10 p.m., chatting up friendly Sheilas, surprise encounters with big red roos or furry Koalas, and (for the very lucky few) failed attempts to charm the meter maids of Surfer’s Paradise. Their funny anecdotes about riggers making pets of little brown penguins and Esso inspectors asking why there were cases and cases of Modess sanitary napkins on the barge (the divers used them as air filters) did not disguise how challenging they found working in Bass Strait aboard a flat bottom 300’ x 100’ x 26’ derrick barge and transiting to and from the barge aboard our 65 ft. crew/utility boats (ROBIN B. INGRAM or BRADFORD INGRAM or FRITZ INGRAM JNR.). Those were the (good old?) days.



In November 1971

a) INGRAM DERRICK BARGE 3 became McDERMOTT DERRICK BARGE No. 19. In 1981 McDermott contracted with Sembawang Shipyard in Singapore to modify her and give her a 164 ft long x 19.7 ft wide pipe ramp and increase her crew capacity from 60 to 102.

b) INGRAM DERRICK BARGE 5 became McDERMOTT DERRICK BARGE No. 20. This is the barge that was lost near Dampier in 1989 when Cyclone Orson drove her aground.

c) INGRAM DERRICK BARGE 7 became McDERMOTT DERRICK BARGE No. 21. This is the derrick barge built by Evans Deakin in Brisbane in 1969. She had a long career: she was working for Global Industries until 2013 and I believe Global sold her.


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## dougrorison18

Hi there. I have been reading these posts with great interest. I was hired by Ingram Contractors in Melbourne, Australia as an office boy. I was 17 and hired by a fellow from Louisiana named Gayle Orgeron. At that time (1968) Ingram were located in the Esso building in Londsdale street. My job was to start early in the morning and fill the coffee urn and then keep it going all day! I remember the first day on the job because the office had the unforgettable aroma of coffee and cigars. I was introduced around to some people whose names I still recall. Dick Plake was in overall charge of Ingram in Australia & I remember he was a tall fellow who appeared to this raw 17 year old as quite a scary character! The Manager of Operations? was an ex USA Army Corps of Engineers called JC Denney. Another one was an ex Lieutenant Commander called Ed Weekes. I remember him as he had a name plaque on his desk and he was pretty good with the profanities! A few days after starting in this job, JC Denny must have read my resume and must have noticed my drafting qualification. I was appointed 'Engineering Aide' and although still expected to keep that coffee pot going I was put in charge of filing all of the rolled up engineering drawings of which there were hundreds. Ingram were moving to their own offices in Queen street Melbourne at this time so I was provided with an office which included a drafting table, xerox copier and large filing drawers. As there were going to be many more drawings produced it was decided to have them all microfiched so a microfiche reader was also provided. As part of my duties I took over the 'morning report' from an Australian employee called Kevin Essing. I phoned Barry Beach each morning to obtain data and manually write a report of the previous 24hrs progress which included metres of pipe laid from the platforms and other items relating to the operations down there. This report eventually landed on Dick Plakes' desk as well as some of the other people previously mentioned. During this period Derrick Barge 7 was being completed in Brisbane & an engineer called John Rinnie? Pasted the wall in our office with one of the largest engineering drawings I have ever seen! From him I learned about 'critical path' theory and the drawing was virtually a time line of every operation required to complete the build of the barge. This was in the days before computers so everything was manually recorded! I remember that the Australian Prime Minister's wife, Sonia McMahon, visted our office one day and I was introduced to her. Ingram made a film at that time called 'Ingram Contractors in Australia' and my hands appeared in it demonstrating the microfiche filing system. I was also assigned to an Australian engineer named Ross Quick who was tasked with devising a method of burying the undersea pipelines being laid from all of the platforms. At that time these were Barracouta, Marlin, Kingfish A and Kingfish B. Ross Quick's idea was to take an existing pump on the 'Jetbarge' and through a complicated venturi pipe system and an apparatus called a 'Jetsled,' pump huge volumes of water down to the sled which straddled the pipe. A system of nozzles was supposed to direct this water directly under the pipe thus excavating the sand from beneath it and allowing the pipe to sink into the trench created. I remember that the Jetbarge pump was giving no end of trouble & so it was decided that he needed to go to the site to see the problems for himself. I asked if I could also go as I was the one who was doing the drawings and JC Denny gave his approval. This would be my 1st and only trip offshore. We travelled from Lakes Entrance on a 65ft crewboat out to the Jetbarge and had to jump aboard as the swell brought the 2 vessels decks level with each other. For a raw 18 year old (by this time,) this was exciting stuff. We did our observations, assessments and whatever stuff we thought we needed and next day after a huge breakfast on board the Jetbarge we got on board the crewboat for Lakes Entrance. It was on that trip back that the Captain of the boat talked me into getting seasick! Ross and I were riding in the wheelhouse with the Captain who kept asking me if I had had a good breakfast? The sea was dead calm almost glassy but this Louisianan kept up the banter until I felt so queasy I needed to vomit which, I duly did! I think el capitano was very pleased with himself! Sadly my time with Ingram was going to end about 6 months after I turned 19. Apparently Esso were dissatisfied with the pipelaying progress and brought another contracting company in to take over. I think it may have been Halliburton but could not be sure. I was made redundant but received a glowing reference from JC Denney (which I think I still have.) I look back fondly on those days as I was priviliged to be at the forefront of the cutting edge technology of the day.


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## tonymay1999

Well I'll be damned, The Bass Strait 1969 I spent that whole year welding 30inch and 36inch pipe on Ingram's Derrick Barge # 5. We, the welders, were the highest paid welders in Australia at that time and we all had to belong to the Boilermakers Society(Union) out of the Melbourne office, including the welders from the USA. Locals worked 3 weeks on and 1 week off, the Americans worked 25 days on with 5 days off. Those Americans on board were the greatest welder teachers of the day and we all learned from them. When job was over most welders were offered welder work on the same barge that went to Bruni waters.


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## DxbBob

tonymay1999 said:


> Well I'll be damned, The Bass Strait 1969 I spent that whole year welding 30inch and 36inch pipe on Ingram's Derrick Barge # 5. We, the welders, were the highest paid welders in Australia at that time and we all had to belong to the Boilermakers Society(Union) out of the Melbourne office, including the welders from the USA. Locals worked 3 weeks on and 1 week off, the Americans worked 25 days on with 5 days off. Those Americans on board were the greatest welder teachers of the day and we all learned from them. When job was over most welders were offered welder work on the same barge that went to Bruni waters.


The work that I remember (I’m sure it’s not all of the pipeline work Ingram Australia performed) involved DB5 laying the 18 inch O.D. subsea gas gathering line 24.5 km (15 miles) from Barracouta platform (46m / 151 foot w.d.) to shore. The work started in June 1968 and was completed in early November 1968. After Evans Deakin in Brisbane completed INGRAM DERRICK BARGE 7 circa May 1969 I think she laid the 6 inch O.D. oil/LPG pipeline 23.6 km. (14 miles) from Barracouta platform to shore.
Installation of a 53 km (33 miles) long 20 inch O.D. subsea gas gathering line from Marlin platform (52 m / 172 feet w.d.) to shore started in mid November 1968 and was completed in May 1969. Trenching and burial of 69,400 feet (21 km) of that line was subsequently carried out by INGRAM JET BARGE 1 and completed, I think, early in September 1969.
I don’t have a feel for the dates, but Ingram’s DB5 and DB7 were also supposed to lay 47 miles of 24 inch O.D. line from the Halibut platform (64m / 210 foot w.d.) to shore.
Ingram's and McDermott's port stewards and work barge camp bosses were heroes. It was always a treat when we onshore folks had a chance to attend the occasional shrimp boil that a barge camp boss would host. McDermott's Smokey Harrison had several in Dubai and Cairo when I was in the M.E. and McDermott S.E. Asia had an Australian gent whose name I can't recall at the moment (Tom C something) worked wonders at the shrimp boils I attended in Singapore and Jakarta. They turned beer, boiled potatoes, corn on the cob, tiger prawns, Tabasco and rolls of paper towels into the best customer relations McDermott had!


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## DxbBob

dougrorison18 said:


> Hi there. I have been reading these posts with great interest. I was hired by Ingram Contractors in Melbourne, Australia as an office boy. I was 17 and hired by a fellow from Louisiana named Gayle Orgeron. At that time (1968) Ingram were located in the Esso building in Londsdale street. My job was to start early in the morning and fill the coffee urn and then keep it going all day! I remember the first day on the job because the office had the unforgettable aroma of coffee and cigars. I was introduced around to some people whose names I still recall. Dick Plake was in overall charge of Ingram in Australia & I remember he was a tall fellow who appeared to this raw 17 year old as quite a scary character! The Manager of Operations? was an ex USA Army Corps of Engineers called JC Denney. Another one was an ex Lieutenant Commander called Ed Weekes. I remember him as he had a name plaque on his desk and he was pretty good with the profanities! A few days after starting in this job, JC Denny must have read my resume and must have noticed my drafting qualification. I was appointed 'Engineering Aide' and although still expected to keep that coffee pot going I was put in charge of filing all of the rolled up engineering drawings of which there were hundreds. Ingram were moving to their own offices in Queen street Melbourne at this time so I was provided with an office which included a drafting table, xerox copier and large filing drawers. As there were going to be many more drawings produced it was decided to have them all microfiched so a microfiche reader was also provided. As part of my duties I took over the 'morning report' from an Australian employee called Kevin Essing. I phoned Barry Beach each morning to obtain data and manually write a report of the previous 24hrs progress which included metres of pipe laid from the platforms and other items relating to the operations down there. This report eventually landed on Dick Plakes' desk as well as some of the other people previously mentioned. During this period Derrick Barge 7 was being completed in Brisbane & an engineer called John Rinnie? Pasted the wall in our office with one of the largest engineering drawings I have ever seen! From him I learned about 'critical path' theory and the drawing was virtually a time line of every operation required to complete the build of the barge. This was in the days before computers so everything was manually recorded! I remember that the Australian Prime Minister's wife, Sonia McMahon, visted our office one day and I was introduced to her. Ingram made a film at that time called 'Ingram Contractors in Australia' and my hands appeared in it demonstrating the microfiche filing system. I was also assigned to an Australian engineer named Ross Quick who was tasked with devising a method of burying the undersea pipelines being laid from all of the platforms. At that time these were Barracouta, Marlin, Kingfish A and Kingfish B. Ross Quick's idea was to take an existing pump on the 'Jetbarge' and through a complicated venturi pipe system and an apparatus called a 'Jetsled,' pump huge volumes of water down to the sled which straddled the pipe. A system of nozzles was supposed to direct this water directly under the pipe thus excavating the sand from beneath it and allowing the pipe to sink into the trench created. I remember that the Jetbarge pump was giving no end of trouble & so it was decided that he needed to go to the site to see the problems for himself. I asked if I could also go as I was the one who was doing the drawings and JC Denny gave his approval. This would be my 1st and only trip offshore. We travelled from Lakes Entrance on a 65ft crewboat out to the Jetbarge and had to jump aboard as the swell brought the 2 vessels decks level with each other. For a raw 18 year old (by this time,) this was exciting stuff. We did our observations, assessments and whatever stuff we thought we needed and next day after a huge breakfast on board the Jetbarge we got on board the crewboat for Lakes Entrance. It was on that trip back that the Captain of the boat talked me into getting seasick! Ross and I were riding in the wheelhouse with the Captain who kept asking me if I had had a good breakfast? The sea was dead calm almost glassy but this Louisianan kept up the banter until I felt so queasy I needed to vomit which, I duly did! I think el capitano was very pleased with himself! Sadly my time with Ingram was going to end about 6 months after I turned 19. Apparently Esso were dissatisfied with the pipelaying progress and brought another contracting company in to take over. I think it may have been Halliburton but could not be sure. I was made redundant but received a glowing reference from JC Denney (which I think I still have.) I look back fondly on those days as I was priviliged to be at the forefront of the cutting edge technology of the day.


Thanks for your post.
In December 1966 I visited my brother-in-law for Christmas at his home in New Orleans. His name was Al Ingersoll, then a 28 year old Kings Point Merchant Marine Academy graduate and former Lykes Lines deck officer. Over the holidays I decided not to return to college. In January 1967 Al drove me to his office on the West Bank so I could apply for a job with his new employer, the fledgling Ingram Contractors, Inc. I hired on as a welder’s helper in their small fab yard wedged between Destrehan Avenue and the Harvey Canal, about two miles or so south of the Harvey Lock at river mile 98.3 on the Mississippi River in the port of New Orleans. Those were wonderful times: the demand for oil created opportunities. I spent the next four plus decades working in offshore construction, first with the Ingram organization (until April 1973) and then with McDermott (to May 2016). I’m indebted to Al Ingersoll.
*Mr. Plake – *Mr. Plake was still based in the Ingram Contractors main office in Harvey when I moved from the fab yard into the accounting department late in 1967. A no nonsense pipeliner, he’d already had the equivalent of two men’s careers by the time he joined Ingram. In the Harvey office he was regarded as a patriarch, a benevolent despot. His experience and character must have been apparent while he worked in Australia, as in 1970 Mr. Plake was presented with a plaque by APC’s Carter Johnson as an expression of the gratitude of members of the Australian Pipeline Contractors Association for his leadership and devotion to Australia’s pipeline industry. Mr. Plake passed in 1997.















*Other Ingram Colleagues Down Under – *I worked with Gayle Orgeron: we each had dotted line reporting responsibilities to the company controller, Oscar Hardison. When Gayle returned to the Harvey office from Australia, he lived for a time two doors down the street from me. He was an excellent accountant and mentor.
I vaguely remember J C Denney, but Ed Weekes is familiar to me in name only. I remember listening to a recording of a song lamenting Bass Strait weather composed and sung by Captain Frank Curry, superintendent of DB3. I remember an ex DuPont safety engineer from Chattanooga, Tennessee, named Bert Touchberry who did yeoman’s work Down Under. I remember Bill Roberts and although John Rennie (sp?) has a familiar ring, I can’t recall ever meeting him. I met a gregarious Australian H.R. man named (Pete or Tony?) Palisi. I knew of Gerald Buck during the Esso BHP Billiton project and became more familiar with him when he worked in Brazil. Gerald was highly respected, those who worked with him valued his experience and enjoyed his friendship. While I was working in Jakarta I found out Gerald passed, perhaps around 1995. I first met Ross Quick while I was working for McDermott in Dubai. I think Ross was a project engineer and later a project manager on various ARAMCO and Arabian Oil Co. contracts in Saudi and the Neutral Zone. I remember Ross as a gentleman and worthwhile friend. I believe Harry was a barge clerk on DB5 or DB7. I first met Harry years later when he relocated to Dubai from Singapore. After Ingram’s offshore equipment was acquired by McDermott (d/b/a “Oceanic Contractors, Inc.”) in November 1971, a sale that expanded McDermott’s operations to Brazil, Trinidad, and Australia, and the spreads were based out of Batam Island and Jurong Marine Base, Harry relocated to Singapore and, among other things, managed the ‘above-deck’ labor on McDermott’s major work barges operating in S.E. Asia and the Middle East.
.*Ingram’s 1967 – 1969 Fleet Expansion – *Based in Australia, I think Russ Ramsey and John Arendt reported to Ingersoll and were involved in the new builds completed in Australian shipyards between December 1967 and July 1969. These included INGRAM DERRICK BARGE 7 in Evans Deakin at Kangaroo Point, Brisbane, and from Adelaide Ship Construction, Birkenhead, Port Adelaide, the deck cargo barges INGRAM OFFSHORE 103 and 104, INGRAM JET BARGE NO. 1, crew/utility boat ROBIN B. INGRAM, crew boats BRADFORD INGRAM and FRITZ INGRAM JNR., and the anchor handling tugs ORRIN H. INGRAM, JOHN R. INGRAM, TIMOTHY INGRAM, and CAROLE INGRAM. While Ingram was constructing the foregoing Aussie flag vessels it was also built DB 5 and DB 6 in France, two large cargo barges in Orange, Texas, and an 8 cubic yard drag bucket dredge, two marsh pipelay barges, and tugboat in Lockport, Louisiana.
In 1968 Cochrane and Sons in Selby, North Yorkshire, England, completed the tugs E. BRONSON INGRAM and FREDERICK B. INGRAM.
I recall an Ingram derrick barge superintendent named Fred Jennings who was assigned as the owner’s rep in the shipyard constructing Ingram’s DB5 (then the largest combination barge in the world) and DB6 (I think it was Construction Navale De Bordeaux in Bordeaux, France). When DB5 was completed, sans derrick crane, she was towed to New Orleans for outfitting where Al Ingersoll, then manager of the Equipment Development Dept., was charged with assembling and installing the 600 s.t. lift capacity Clyde Iron Works model 52 “Whirley” crane on the centerline tub astern the barge, reeving it with over 3.5 miles of 1-1/2 inch and 1-5/8 inch diameter wire rope, and performing certified test lifts. Al and team were busy as blue-assed flies and successfully completed the job in just 37 days!
Another member of Ingersoll’s Equipment Development team named John Isaacson (sp.?) managed a contract with Western Gear Corporation in Everett, Washington, to develop a constant tension track type linear pipe tensioner for Ingram’s new combination derrick – lay barges. John’s missionary zeal, coupled with the design – build experience Western Gear developed performing first of a kind projects for Howard Hughes’ GLOMAR EXPLORER and the U.S. Navy’s undersea cable-laying vessel NEPTUNE (T-ARC2), resulted in the Pipemaster LPT-80, the first of which was installed on INGRAM DERRICK BARGE 5 and used in Australia. More LPTs followed and followed. In 1970 Ingram elected to forego protecting the new LPT designs as its proprietary technology, freeing the way for Western Gear’s engineers to apply for the patent and assign it to Western Gear. One might conclude that while 'new kid' Ingram Contractors was technically innovative and by then the third largest offshore contractor (behind McDermott and Brown & Root), it may have lacked commercial savvy in certain areas.


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## DxbBob

DxbBob said:


> Thanks for your post.
> In December 1966 I visited my brother-in-law for Christmas at his home in New Orleans. His name was Al Ingersoll, then a 28 year old Kings Point Merchant Marine Academy graduate and former Lykes Lines deck officer. Over the holidays I decided not to return to college. In January 1967 Al drove me to his office on the West Bank so I could apply for a job with his new employer, the fledgling Ingram Contractors, Inc. I hired on as a welder’s helper in their small fab yard wedged between Destrehan Avenue and the Harvey Canal, about two miles or so south of the Harvey Lock at river mile 98.3 on the Mississippi River in the port of New Orleans. Those were wonderful times: the demand for oil created opportunities. I spent the next four plus decades working in offshore construction, first with the Ingram organization (until April 1973) and then with McDermott (to May 2016). I’m indebted to Al Ingersoll.
> *Mr. Plake – *Mr. Plake was still based in the Ingram Contractors main office in Harvey when I moved from the fab yard into the accounting department late in 1967. A no nonsense pipeliner, he’d already had the equivalent of two men’s careers by the time he joined Ingram. In the Harvey office he was regarded as a patriarch, a benevolent despot. His experience and character must have been apparent while he worked in Australia, as in 1970 Mr. Plake was presented with a plaque by APC’s Carter Johnson as an expression of the gratitude of members of the Australian Pipeline Contractors Association for his leadership and devotion to Australia’s pipeline industry. Mr. Plake passed in 1997.
> View attachment 694843
> View attachment 694844
> 
> *Other Ingram Colleagues Down Under – *I worked with Gayle Orgeron: we each had dotted line reporting responsibilities to the company controller, Oscar Hardison. When Gayle returned to the Harvey office from Australia, he lived for a time two doors down the street from me. He was an excellent accountant and mentor.
> I vaguely remember J C Denney, but Ed Weekes is familiar to me in name only. I remember listening to a recording of a song lamenting Bass Strait weather composed and sung by Captain Frank Curry, superintendent of DB3. I remember an ex DuPont safety engineer from Chattanooga, Tennessee, named Bert Touchberry who did yeoman’s work Down Under. I remember Bill Roberts and although John Rennie (sp?) has a familiar ring, I can’t recall ever meeting him. I met a gregarious Australian H.R. man named (Pete or Tony?) Palisi. I knew of Gerald Buck during the Esso BHP Billiton project and became more familiar with him when he worked in Brazil. Gerald was highly respected, those who worked with him valued his experience and enjoyed his friendship. While I was working in Jakarta I found out Gerald passed, perhaps around 1995. I first met Ross Quick while I was working for McDermott in Dubai. I think Ross was a project engineer and later a project manager on various ARAMCO and Arabian Oil Co. contracts in Saudi and the Neutral Zone. I remember Ross as a gentleman and worthwhile friend. I believe Harry was a barge clerk on DB5 or DB7. I first met Harry years later when he relocated to Dubai from Singapore. After Ingram’s offshore equipment was acquired by McDermott (d/b/a “Oceanic Contractors, Inc.”) in November 1971, a sale that expanded McDermott’s operations to Brazil, Trinidad, and Australia, and the spreads were based out of Batam Island and Jurong Marine Base, Harry relocated to Singapore and, among other things, managed the ‘above-deck’ labor on McDermott’s major work barges operating in S.E. Asia and the Middle East.
> .*Ingram’s 1967 – 1969 Fleet Expansion – *Based in Australia, I think Russ Ramsey and John Arendt reported to Ingersoll and were involved in the new builds completed in Australian shipyards between December 1967 and July 1969. These included INGRAM DERRICK BARGE 7 in Evans Deakin at Kangaroo Point, Brisbane, and from Adelaide Ship Construction, Birkenhead, Port Adelaide, the deck cargo barges INGRAM OFFSHORE 103 and 104, INGRAM JET BARGE NO. 1, crew/utility boat ROBIN B. INGRAM, crew boats BRADFORD INGRAM and FRITZ INGRAM JNR., and the anchor handling tugs ORRIN H. INGRAM, JOHN R. INGRAM, TIMOTHY INGRAM, and CAROLE INGRAM. While Ingram was constructing the foregoing Aussie flag vessels it was also built DB 5 and DB 6 in France, two large cargo barges in Orange, Texas, and an 8 cubic yard drag bucket dredge, two marsh pipelay barges, and tugboat in Lockport, Louisiana.
> In 1968 Cochrane and Sons in Selby, North Yorkshire, England, completed the tugs E. BRONSON INGRAM and FREDERICK B. INGRAM.
> I recall an Ingram derrick barge superintendent named Fred Jennings who was assigned as the owner’s rep in the shipyard constructing Ingram’s DB5 (then the largest combination barge in the world) and DB6 (I think it was Construction Navale De Bordeaux in Bordeaux, France). When DB5 was completed, sans derrick crane, she was towed to New Orleans for outfitting where Al Ingersoll, then manager of the Equipment Development Dept., was charged with assembling and installing the 600 s.t. lift capacity Clyde Iron Works model 52 “Whirley” crane on the centerline tub astern the barge, reeving it with over 3.5 miles of 1-1/2 inch and 1-5/8 inch diameter wire rope, and performing certified test lifts. Al and team were busy as blue-assed flies and successfully completed the job in just 37 days!
> Another member of Ingersoll’s Equipment Development team named John Isaacson (sp.?) managed a contract with Western Gear Corporation in Everett, Washington, to develop a constant tension track type linear pipe tensioner for Ingram’s new combination derrick – lay barges. John’s missionary zeal, coupled with the design – build experience Western Gear developed performing first of a kind projects for Howard Hughes’ GLOMAR EXPLORER and the U.S. Navy’s undersea cable-laying vessel NEPTUNE (T-ARC2), resulted in the Pipemaster LPT-80, the first of which was installed on INGRAM DERRICK BARGE 5 and used in Australia. More LPTs followed and followed. In 1970 Ingram elected to forego protecting the new LPT designs as its proprietary technology, freeing the way for Western Gear’s engineers to apply for the patent and assign it to Western Gear. One might conclude that while 'new kid' Ingram Contractors was technically innovative and by then the third largest offshore contractor (behind McDermott and Brown & Root), it may have lacked commercial savvy in certain areas.


The "Harry" to whom I refer in the Other Ingram Colleagues section is Harry Somic.


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## DxbBob

dougrorison18 said:


> Hi there. I have been reading these posts with great interest. I was hired by Ingram Contractors in Melbourne, Australia as an office boy. I was 17 and hired by a fellow from Louisiana named Gayle Orgeron. At that time (1968) Ingram were located in the Esso building in Londsdale street. My job was to start early in the morning and fill the coffee urn and then keep it going all day! I remember the first day on the job because the office had the unforgettable aroma of coffee and cigars. I was introduced around to some people whose names I still recall. Dick Plake was in overall charge of Ingram in Australia & I remember he was a tall fellow who appeared to this raw 17 year old as quite a scary character! The Manager of Operations? was an ex USA Army Corps of Engineers called JC Denney. Another one was an ex Lieutenant Commander called Ed Weekes. I remember him as he had a name plaque on his desk and he was pretty good with the profanities! A few days after starting in this job, JC Denny must have read my resume and must have noticed my drafting qualification. I was appointed 'Engineering Aide' and although still expected to keep that coffee pot going I was put in charge of filing all of the rolled up engineering drawings of which there were hundreds. Ingram were moving to their own offices in Queen street Melbourne at this time so I was provided with an office which included a drafting table, xerox copier and large filing drawers. As there were going to be many more drawings produced it was decided to have them all microfiched so a microfiche reader was also provided. As part of my duties I took over the 'morning report' from an Australian employee called Kevin Essing. I phoned Barry Beach each morning to obtain data and manually write a report of the previous 24hrs progress which included metres of pipe laid from the platforms and other items relating to the operations down there. This report eventually landed on Dick Plakes' desk as well as some of the other people previously mentioned. During this period Derrick Barge 7 was being completed in Brisbane & an engineer called John Rinnie? Pasted the wall in our office with one of the largest engineering drawings I have ever seen! From him I learned about 'critical path' theory and the drawing was virtually a time line of every operation required to complete the build of the barge. This was in the days before computers so everything was manually recorded! I remember that the Australian Prime Minister's wife, Sonia McMahon, visted our office one day and I was introduced to her. Ingram made a film at that time called 'Ingram Contractors in Australia' and my hands appeared in it demonstrating the microfiche filing system. I was also assigned to an Australian engineer named Ross Quick who was tasked with devising a method of burying the undersea pipelines being laid from all of the platforms. At that time these were Barracouta, Marlin, Kingfish A and Kingfish B. Ross Quick's idea was to take an existing pump on the 'Jetbarge' and through a complicated venturi pipe system and an apparatus called a 'Jetsled,' pump huge volumes of water down to the sled which straddled the pipe. A system of nozzles was supposed to direct this water directly under the pipe thus excavating the sand from beneath it and allowing the pipe to sink into the trench created. I remember that the Jetbarge pump was giving no end of trouble & so it was decided that he needed to go to the site to see the problems for himself. I asked if I could also go as I was the one who was doing the drawings and JC Denny gave his approval. This would be my 1st and only trip offshore. We travelled from Lakes Entrance on a 65ft crewboat out to the Jetbarge and had to jump aboard as the swell brought the 2 vessels decks level with each other. For a raw 18 year old (by this time,) this was exciting stuff. We did our observations, assessments and whatever stuff we thought we needed and next day after a huge breakfast on board the Jetbarge we got on board the crewboat for Lakes Entrance. It was on that trip back that the Captain of the boat talked me into getting seasick! Ross and I were riding in the wheelhouse with the Captain who kept asking me if I had had a good breakfast? The sea was dead calm almost glassy but this Louisianan kept up the banter until I felt so queasy I needed to vomit which, I duly did! I think el capitano was very pleased with himself! Sadly my time with Ingram was going to end about 6 months after I turned 19. Apparently Esso were dissatisfied with the pipelaying progress and brought another contracting company in to take over. I think it may have been Halliburton but could not be sure. I was made redundant but received a glowing reference from JC Denney (which I think I still have.) I look back fondly on those days as I was privileged to be at the forefront of the cutting edge technology of the day.


You mentioned Esso mobilizing another contractor to construct subsea pipelines in Bass Strait - you thought it might have been Halliburton. I suspect the other contractor to which Esso – BHP Billiton awarded the installation of subsea pipelines in Bass Strait was Santa Fe – Pomeroy, Inc. rather than Halliburton or others. Esso wanted to use Santa Fe's newly launched CHOCTAW, the first column stabilized semi-submersible pipe lay barge, probably to lay a 15 mile long 20 inch O.D. crude trunk line from the Kingfish “A" platform to the Halibut platform and a 3.9 km (2.5 miles) long 16 inch crude flowline from Kingfish “B” platform to Kingfish “A". That work had been planned for October 1969. On 05 May 1969 CHOCTAW was shifted from Van der Giessen shipyard in Krimpen aan den IJssel to the Werf Gusto shipyard in Schiedam for installation of her 725 ton capacity (fixed over the stern) crane. I assume she reached Australia on schedule in October 1969. Back in the days of manual stick welded pipelines and first generation combination barges and lay barges, weather downtime was a foreseeable risk and weather downtime was typically compensated by the customer. Touted by Santa Fe as capable of laying pipe in 16 foot seas and given that the waters around the Halibut and the two Kingfish platforms range from 64 to 79 meters (210 to 253 feet) deep, I imagine Esso leapt at the chance of employing CHOCTAW in lieu of Ingram’s DB5 and/or DB7. CHOCTAW was still operating in Bass Strait in March 1970 but I don’t know if that was in accordance with her originally contemplated schedule.


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## DxbBob

tonymay1999 said:


> Well I'll be damned, The Bass Strait 1969 I spent that whole year welding 30inch and 36inch pipe on Ingram's Derrick Barge # 5. We, the welders, were the highest paid welders in Australia at that time and we all had to belong to the Boilermakers Society(Union) out of the Melbourne office, including the welders from the USA. Locals worked 3 weeks on and 1 week off, the Americans worked 25 days on with 5 days off. Those Americans on board were the greatest welder teachers of the day and we all learned from them. When job was over most welders were offered welder work on the same barge that went to Bruni waters.


I came across a fine photo of your home away from home - INGRAM DERRICK BARGE 5 supposedly somewhere near Brisbane. Photo by Bob Mayer. Cheers.


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