Salvage (From the South China Sea to the Caribbean Coast: A Deep Sea Story)

By Jon May

Salvage, the long-awaited follow up to Jon May’s first book, Divers, tells of his time with the truly extraordinary South China Sea Ocean Salvage And Towing Company, from dealing with the devastating consequences of a typhoon in the South China Sea, searching for missing explosives and going to the rescue of a shipwrecked crew, to hunting for lost pirate treasure, treating wounds from a shark attack and almost being lost at sea himself.
Salvage has the dry, dark humour of professionals facing tough, life changing decisions in the face of disaster and has a delicate balance of harsh reality and poignant reflection, giving further insight into the truly remarkable and adventurous lives of these men at sea.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sixth Element Publishing
• Release date: Jul 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781908299734

Jon May

John May is at the Department of Geography and The City Centre, Queen Mary, University of London. He is the author of Global Cities At Work (Pluto, 2009).

Book preview

SALVAGE

From the South China Sea to the Caribbean Coast

A Deep Sea Story

by

Jon May

•

Published by Sixth Element Publishing

On behalf of Jon May

Sixth Element Publishing

Arthur Robinson House

13-14 The Green

Billingham TS23 1EU

Tel: [phone]

www.6epublishing.net

© Jon May 2015

EPUB ISBN 978-1-908299-73-4

KINDLE ISBN 978-1-908299-74-1

Jon May asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

•

Also available in paperback

•

All over the world, the big dive support ships that helped to build the North Sea fields are underemployed. A few, the first of their kind to be commissioned thirty years and more ago, have already made the last trip to the breakers’ yard.

For those of us who crewed those ships, for the men who pioneered the North Sea oil boom, there is an air of finality in this decline. This book is about one of the alternatives that some of us chose to pursue when the other avenues to use our skills closed. There are few Emergency Support Vessels working, but for those who are lucky enough to crew them, the ESVs represent a way to employ skills and attitudes of mind that seem already to belong to a previous age.

This is the story of one such Emergency Support Ship and of her crew. It is also, as it happens, the story of the second period of my life in the offshore industry. It follows directly on from my previous book, Divers, but it can, of course, be read alone. Unlike Divers, this is not one man’s story alone.

All the characters and incidents existed, though some of the episodes are based on direct first person accounts of events, and I have, as always, changed details unhesitatingly to produce a coherent narrative. They represent perhaps the last enclave on Earth of the way of seafaring that may not have much longer to run.

There are those, far from the events, who will find in this account only confirmation of their preconceptions of offshore workers. Seafaring in the offshore fields is not a soft trade, and it does not attract soft men, but if we build a world where there is no longer a place for such pioneers, will it really be a world worth living in?

CHAPTER ONE

In the garden of the Cosy Inn, in the distant water oil base of Miri in Malaysia, there is a clear pool of fresh water. How the crew came to gather there that night, a complete team, far from home at the end of a job that had been more noted for error than successes, is another story. But that was the night that Steve first suggested the fire fighting course, and everything else, the Typhoon Star, the Lay barge, the nightmare accident, all followed from that. It was one of those odd drinking sessions at the end of a job, when men who have worked and lived together as a small community in the endless empty ocean, are together for one final time before the team breaks up.

From the point of view of an outsider, the diving industry has a great many bizarre characteristics. We are a cottage industry of a few hundred men and on our expertise rests the smooth operation of the world’s multi-billion dollar offshore oil industry. We are an industry of fierce individuals who defend their independent action to the last, yet diving jobs are among the most self-disciplined of all activities in the world of work.

But of all our ways of operating, nothing seems more odd to outsiders than the casual labour system of hiring a crew for each particular job. We can be hired just about anywhere, in a bar, or maybe over the telephone, from thousands of miles distant.

It must be said from the outset that Steve is different. Tough minded, where the old timers were simply tough, intelligent and highly trained while they relied on common sense and experience, he is one of the second generation technicians who are taking over the industry as it slowly comes of age.

He lifted a long-stemmed glass containing perhaps half an inch of the blood red cocktail that Jimmy, the jolly Malay who runs the place, calls Zombie’s Blood. It was misted to a deep dull red as it glowed in the moonlight.

That is really good stuff, he said.

Someone waved to Jimmy for another jug, and he parked it on the table between us.

Jock, the electrician, yawned.

I hate to break up the party, he said. But I’m on the early ferry in the morning.

See you in West Africa this winter? said a voice in the shadows.

It was a standing joke. The West Africa Oilfields are the last quiet season refuge of the desperate. An unregulated nightmare, to be considered only if you really need a job.

Jock considered. Ah, what’s Tagalog for ‘No fucking chance’? he said.

No fucking chance, came a reply from the shadows and it was followed by a spike of laughter that stirred some noisy tropical night bird into an outraged squawk.

Steve grinned. Actually, Jon, he said, I’ve got something you might fancy coming up. You’ll need to do the advanced fire fighting course, though.

I’ve already done the theory, I said.

It’s not the theory that’s the problem. You’ll have to watch yourself, mate. It’s a really tough one, this.

Yes. I’ve heard.

Just take care, okay? I don’t want you injured before we even start on the job.

You make the course sound worse than the job.

In a way it is. We probably won’t do anything in the field but wait and watch for weeks on end. After all, how many Emergency Support Ships actually work for a living?

I had to acknowledge the truth of that.

So this job’s an ESV? I said.

Steve took a pull at his drink and looked back at the white hot heart of the burning log fire that Jimmy puts in the brazier in the garden despite the warmth of the tropical night. He says it looks romantic, even though we reckon it attracts bats.

It’s a funny thing, fire, he said.

I looked at him.

Funny? I asked, by now I was used to Steve’s non sequiters.

Loads of people think it’s sacred, and it gives everyone a kick.

I suppose so.

Sure it does. Why else do you have an open grate at home? It must be a pain to look after. All that ash and dust?

I’m a traditionalist.

And that’s why you have a Shiva, I suppose.

He gestured to the statue in the half shadows of the garden. I followed the direction of his gesture.

Shiva? I said. Well, everyone who works India has a Shiva.

The carved figure caught the light and flickered, almost as if it were truly dancing. Dance of creation, dance of destruction, dance of life, dance of death. Shiva, lord of the Hindu pantheon, danced in a ring of fire.

Time I was in bed, in any case, he said. The ferry is at six and it’s two now. I brought you something to look at. It may help you decide.

He fished out a folder, comb bound in red shiny card, with a line drawing of a ship on the outer cover.

It’s the ship’s operating specification. You might like to read it. At least it will give you an idea of what we’re planning.

He swallowed the last of his drink and made to stand up.

‘ESV Tempest’, it was headed in bold black type. ESV means Emergency Support Vessel – and from the builders’ date on the folder, this was a very recently commissioned ship indeed.

Such a ship is expensive, in build time, materials, and men. There is only one way that that investment can pay back its costs, and that is from salvage dues and prize money. From then on, if I chose to join her crew, our professional operations would involve mainly maritime disaster and fire fighting. It seemed to have the makings of an interesting job.

CHAPTER TWO

Three weeks later I was part of a course briefing at the offshore fire fighting base at Lowestoft. It isn’t a lot to look at, just a rough complex of concrete and steel structures scattered around what looks like an old wartime dispersal strip, but its looks belie how sophisticated a training base it is. Within the complex it is possible to simulate everything but the lethal reality of a major fire, with nowhere to run but the ocean, and limited equipment to deal with it.

On the second day after the essential briefing was done, with course partners selected and teams formed, we started on the practical course in earnest. Inside the steel maze of the training complex, it was entirely dark and the air was filled with synthetic smoke. Somewhere, in the ten rooms and fifty yards of convoluted corridors, there was another body, or at least a good facsimile of one. It was a tense, high stress, situation. Not only because we were both wearing Sabre gear to allow more or less normal breathing even under smoke-logged conditions, but because each and every move was being observed by the twenty or so infra-red cameras that are dotted through the complex to analyse errors and problems after the event.

Of course there are always errors and problems. The complex is designed to test the skills of the best trained and most motivated fire fighters, and Clive, my course partner, who was built like an anorexic teenager, and almost vanished in the heavy serge overalls, fell into neither category.

We resumed the search of the corridor, moving low to avoid the worst of the heat and smoke, and feeling our way all the time, while holding hands to keep in touch in the darkness. In those conditions, fifty feet of corridor can take an age to check thoroughly, but there is no way of being clever about the search. Cutting corners costs time and marks on the training course, and costs lives in the real event.

Finally, with the contents gauges on the breathing sets nudging the yellow zone on the dial, meaning that we had less than ten minutes air left, Clive made contact with the weighted dummy that represented our last casualty.

Body on the right, he shouted, and his voice was muffled by the breathing gear. We were forbidden to use the radio communications to make the exercise more difficult. We oriented the dummy by touch, and, taking the weight between us, we set off back along the corridor towards the open air. Two minutes later, we struck a blank steel bulkhead.

Shit! We took the wrong turn, said Clive in disgust, and a second later the bright white overhead lights came on, illuminating the remains of the smoke that was drifting through the black-painted, fume-stained corridors in wisps and tatters.

The public address system hummed and clicked.

Dump the dummy and come on out, came the voice. Can you find the way or do you need a map?

Clive turned towards the nearest camera and stuck two fingers up to it.

Now then, lads, the disembodied voice responded, don’t be irritating the instructor or we might have to do the whole thing again.

We were two days into the course and it was every bit as tough and dangerous as Steve had suggested it might be. Every one of the twelve candidates had already passed basic offshore fire fighting and survival, but this was something else again.

On the first morning, they put each of us through a medical. Only when they had satisfied themselves that we were unlikely to expire from natural causes during the course, did we actually reach the starting line.

The first course event was the signing of a disclaimer. I have it still. That yellow form is a masterpiece of fractured English, filled with choice phrases: There is a high element of risk to participants… The organising instructor may at any time terminate a candidates’ participation if, in his opinion, the candidates’ conduct is a risk to others… Failure to disclose pre-existing respiratory difficulties is grounds for dismissal from the course… Refusal to participate in any course event is grounds for termination of the course… and best of all: No responsibility will be accepted for the injury or death of a candidate during the live fire fighting exercises.

As a document it might not have been legally valid, but it surely succeeded in convincing us that this was the real thing, with no holds barred, and no expense spared.

The maze is just one part of the training complex that the instructors call the ‘playground’. In the complex, it is possible to simulate just about any fire situation that an offshore platform might face, from a burning rubbish bin to a ruptured oil line, and to carry out drills from a whole range of points of view. One team might be working their way through a set of chambers, putting out fires as they go, while a second group, monitoring the situation from a control room mock-up, tries to direct activities.

The training schedule demands total dedication. By day three of the two weeks, everyone took to going to bed exhausted by ten, and dragging themselves to breakfast at eight, aching in every limb. No one went the two weeks without burns, two of them serious enough to require hospital attention.

Finally, at the end of it all, there was a full scale alert drill to carry out. Entering the playground a group at a time, teams of six work their way through a series of hazards, dousing fires as they go, checking each space for live flames and bodies, feeling doors to check for heat, and being caught out by the terrifying simulated back-draught. In this nightmare, a cool door opens to belch a cloud of semi-liquid flaming gas directly at the fire fighters. While visors, Sabre sets and flame-proof suits protect students from real harm, the heat is intense enough to crisp exposed hair and redden skin to a tender pink.

After two weeks, our instructors were grudgingly satisfied. That is, they were willing to allow us, in the event of a really desperate situation, when there was no one else better qualified available, to fight fires at sea.

After the certificates and the course photo, the instructors laid on a meal and a few drinks.

You’ve actually been on a job already, haven’t you? asked John the chief instructor.

The Piper, I said. Yes, but as a medic, not as a fire fighter.

And you want to do another?

"Not

Reviews for Salvage (From the South China Sea to the Caribbean Coast

[100003 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a great book! Couldn't put it down. Hope to see a sequel soon.