Yeah, we just broke 100 for the first time this summer. Our average temp for July was a chilly 90, because of the record-breaking amount of rain. Did you get the crazy rain in Mississippi too, buster?

Wire rope and cables
 

I wish I was smart enough to get my head, fingers and other shit together.

This is about wire rope or cables, which ever you prefer. I thought of this while my rabbit ass brain was flopping around. I saw a 3” cable break, part while on a lay barge.
Which I’ll, one day return to.

So. Once I was a super for contractor from Venice, LA. And we had a bid job for Chevron oil offshore Bayou Fourchon, LA. Safety is the key word here. My rigger foreman and I had to go to a crane school put on by Linkbelt, in a portable class room.
In the flappin marsh.

So we learned all about cables and crane usage. Link, because I don’t have a clue about inserting in word. http://www.webriggingsupply.com/page...ope-about.html

Then when we got on job there was a stiff-leg homemade thing that had an air winch and a deal like you boat owner use to pull the boat on trailer to let the boom up and down. The swing was a rope that you pulled to move the sob.
Of course the air supply was gas, so when we stopped that had to hook up air.
Life is great.

BTW Google maps shows that hwy 23 ends at Pointe a la hache and hwy 1 south of cut off, LA. Maybe my, hope, road trip will see if the hwys are really gone??

This kind of "stiff leg"?

1 mast, 1 boom and that's all folks. But I did learn a little at the class.
Left lay, right lay,etc. other useful things in my trade. But no crap the rigging of cranes is an art. It's called reeving the blocks. All the lines you see on TV running to the load block has to be just so or the lines will twist and screw the game.

What were you using the stiff leg for, moving pipe sections?

Unloading our equipment from supply boats to platform, rig.

Great, so if it fails you damage the boat or it goes in the drink.

Yep, true.

Now back to the Ben Lancer. I was working on it because a friend from brown & root barge job set me up. We, the company, did a lot of hi-pressure piping work for Odeco.
There were 3 of us. Larry Jack was the super, Johnny would be the welder foreman and I would look after the fabrication. Or if 24 hrs a day, Johnny would be day foreman and me nights.
Johnny was from B&R and he learned from an old master named Dugan. Who invented more tricks than most welders will ever learn. Maybe died now.

While on subject of old masters, 1967 I worked for Williams Bros. in Iran. In that crew were some of the old men who had pioneered the pipeline world.. We had a camp burn and one of the Williams boys came over. Joe, maybe a Lt. governor I think. Anyway we were in rec. trailer. Someone went to introduce him to Whitey. Whitey said, Yeah I know that cunt, I invited him to my birthday party and he didn’t show up.
Some of the old welders had used bare rods, and learned that wrapping plain old friction tape around rods worked wonders. A few of the old hands were still working when I went to Peru about 10 years later.

I’m really trying to figure out how to do this. I’ll try to get Odeco Ben Lancer and ocean driller out of way. Then maybe how I set Chevron MP 42 H platform on fire?

The Lancer was in Green Canyon, rigging up to drill in about 1200 ft of water. We were there to do the hi-pressure piping. The safety folks had been there. NO more ropes or chains. So they put ¾” steel chokers on small diameter pipe, which will never bite, hold. Anyway they dropped a joint of 4” down about 4 decks and hit close to a young man working for your vice pres.
A few minutes late he realized how close to dieing he’d come. Was so sick, screwed up, had to be air lifted to shore.
In the 4 decks down where the pumps were that we had to tie into. A mud boat came along side .They blow dry mud on board, but the mud lines were cut. So the whole deal was full of dust. I first thought was that someone had set the Halon fire suppression system off. If so, that’s ball game. No place to run because the entire deck grating was up so we could run pipe.

Ocean driller
When I went to Pascagoula, ms, as night foreman. On the way, radio said a welder had fallen and was killed. So when I get there boy are they busy with the safety nets.
Larry was doing all the time keeping. We were staying in a motel. Other hands were in porta buildings. Anyway I was looking at meal roster for my hands and had about 3 that I’d never heard of. So I asked Larry about this. Hey what if coast guard or OSHA comes around and I can’t produce the hands? Hell they’ll be dragging the damn gulf.

He said you know the 2 gals that are over at motel and the new Red Wing boots the tool pusher is wearing? That’s the guys you can’t find. Not to worry.

BTW. I knew a guy that padded the payroll ticket for Chevron and got caught, because he didn't sign them up for meals and a bunk.

So that's why oil is so expensive.

wow...this is some real stream of consciousness shit. far out man.

Here's a good read on the S.LA. oil fields. The Bay Marchand that they speak of is where I first worked offshore in 1965, just after Betsy.
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/PI/PDFImages/ESPIS/2/2995.pdf
It's a pdf and about 140 pages. Some of the coonasses I know, knew.
About page 4? is a Martial Babin. Hell we rednecks always said Marshall.

Most of what I've read is true, so it'll save me a repeat telling.
But, it won't stop the BS.
BTW. Lots of older cajun men had girls names. There's a story about this, but I'm not hunting it.

I have often wonder about that myself. The waste I've seen, gas should have been 5 bucks years ago. What do I know. Notice that's NOT a question.

I read Babin's story... fascinating. I understand his work ethic and his focus on providing for the family, as it used to be pretty common. These people didn't have a lot of time to worry about what the rest of the world should be doing.

When I get a chance, I want to read the rest of the pdf, thank you.