Emergency Repair Of A Vessel Stabilization System In A French Port

The call came from another commercial diving contractor. They had been working on an offshore-going vessel berthed in a French port and had run out of options: a large rubber element inside the underwater stabilization system had shifted out of position and would not go back.

For the owner that meant one thing, an unplanned drydock, at a cost nobody had budgeted for. We mobilised from our headquarters the same day, with a day shift and a night shift so the work could continue without pause.

Repositioning the element took hydraulic jacks, specialist hydraulic tooling and a lot of patience. It is heavy, awkward work in confined space and it only succeeds when the diver in the water and the team on the surface are working to the same plan, step by step.

Once the element was seated, our engineers designed a steel retaining structure to keep it there. It was fabricated for this vessel, installed underwater and secured with certified underwater wet welding.

The same repair was carried out on the portside and the starboard system. Within a few days the vessel was released and continued her offshore programme, no drydock, no tow, no extended off-hire.