Oil and Gas Platforms. Part-One.

Steel Islands to New types of Ships!

There is a massive change on the way in this area of sea work from the static rigs to a ship built like a catamaran to replace some of the test platforms! This is now one of the largest ships in the world and if proved to be a success we will see more of them built and put into service?

The rig or steel Island has been around for some time, these structures are in their own right floating vessels but they have to be towed from construction to the drill sites. There they are chained to the sea bottom, as in the Gulf of Mexico, North-Sea and the Persian Gulf!

These shallows are ideal for rigs and over the years many designs have come and gone with three to four legged ones being common, but their some with five legs. Four seems to be the best for stability, while these steel islands are more than just drilling platforms they are also accommodation blocks and are serviced by helicopters.

Over the years safety has been improved, after many serious fires in the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. But the dangerous part of working on these today remains the journey to and from, with there being several fatalities because of bad weather, poor maintenance of machines?

Re-Cycling.

Machines die Too.

Technology is always moving on and it leaves behind the old, some of the old go to museums and collectors, while the rest goes to scrap. The price of metals has slumped world wide, apart from a few precious ones, along with gold and diamonds. Most commercial aircraft contain many high value materials, along with nuclear powered naval vessels and bomber/fighter jets.

But generally most cars, ships and trains are made of steel and this can be re-cycled! Currently the United Kingdom is facing the end of its groaning steel industry, because of the Chinese glut of steel. One way to save these old plants would be to update them to re-cycle steel. Much is being said that we need to keep these plants, because of the arms industry? 

But what the general public do not realise, that much of Britain's arms industry is now based with BAE system in the Republic of South-Africa. Appledore Devon last year built three frigate's for the Irish navy, Falmouth continues to build a line of small composite-material fast attack craft for the Persian Gulf states. 

While Flint-Wrexham has the Airbus wings production facility. But Britain has no major shipyards, aircraft manufacturing or owns any part any longer in any mass production car plants. Now the E.U is warning that Brexit may see the loss of Airbus and several other European owned businesses.

Gunboats to Fast Attack. Part-One.

The Smaller Navy?

One would like to think so, because big nations that have access to the seas or large lakes have Frigates, Corvettes and Minesweepers? But this is not so, the development of the Gunboat has matured into the FAC (Fast Attack Craft), these newer vessels are now usually armed with the latest missiles, radar and sonar. 

The orgins of the FAC comes from the Cold War years, when the Soviet navy required their patrol boats to work against mini-subs in shallower waters and also to intercept at speed unidentified targets. The patrol boats of World War II were good up to a point, but they were limited compared to what is available today. Many countries initially received these new FAC Soviet boats, such as Angola, Cambodia, China, Vietnam, North-Korea and Cuba and from their on they made their own adaptions to meet their own requirements.

It was the rich Persian Gulf nations in the middle-east that preferred the FAC ability to change platforms and this opened the door to both the United States and Great Britain, with a few other countries to provide the latest versions.