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busterb · 04-28-2014, 06:23 PM

Project Pluto
Bruce sent me a link about this, because he knew I once did this kind of work. The link . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv9lBqPVuoE

This I found after a little searching.
Historically, the technique of laying undersea fluid-carrying pipelines had its rudimentary beginnings in England in the 1940's in a War-time project known as "Operation Pluto". In the summer of 1944, 3-inch nominal bore steel tubes, electrically flash-welded together, were coiled around floating drums. One end of the pipe was fixed to a terminal point; as the floating drums were towed across the English Channel, the pipe was pulled off the drum. In this manner, pipeline connections were made between the fuel supply depots in England and distribution points on the European continent to support the Allied invasion of Europe.
No known further development work or commercial use of the technique of laying pipe offshore from reels was carried out after World War II. After a hiatus of about fifteen years, research into the reel pipelaying technique was renewed and was carried on by Gurtler, Herbert & Co, Inc of New Orleans, La. (USA); by 1961, Gurtler, Herbert had sufficiently advanced the reel pipelaying technique to make it a commercially acceptable and viable method of laying pipe in the offshore petroleum industry, able to compete with the traditional stovepiping technique. The first known commercial pipelaying reel barge, called the U-303 was built by Aquatic Contractors and Engineers, Inc, a subsidiary of Gurtler, Herbert, in 1961. The U-303 utilised a large vertical-axis reel, permanently mounted on a barge and having horizontally orientated flanges (generally referred to in the trade as a "horizontal reel"). A combined straightener/level winder was employed for spooling pipe onto the reel and for straightening pipe as it was unspooled. The U-303 first laid pipe commercially in September 1961, in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana and was used successfully during the 1960's to lay several million linear feet of pipe of up to 6 inches diameter.
I worked a few times on the U-303, which I think was a converted hull from an old LST. The oil industry used a bunch. Chevron had 4 or 5 which I also work on or off of.
Anyway the main supervision on the U-303 were named Larry, Moe and Curley. Once we laid some small pipe to be pulled up a J-tube and the jughead was telling the tug to pull, pull. But he was talking to wrong tug which pulled the barge anchors back across the pipe we had just laid.
A deck full of cut up scrap.
A link to where I found some of this. A popup will come up. Just close then hit the back button. If you’d like to read. Maybe I’ll add to this later.
Also in upper right corner is more junk
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...-pipelayer.htm

04-28-2014, 06:23 PM	#312
busterb NSABFD Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: MS. usa Posts: 3,908	Project Pluto Project Pluto Bruce sent me a link about this, because he knew I once did this kind of work. The link . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv9lBqPVuoE This I found after a little searching. Historically, the technique of laying undersea fluid-carrying pipelines had its rudimentary beginnings in England in the 1940's in a War-time project known as "Operation Pluto". In the summer of 1944, 3-inch nominal bore steel tubes, electrically flash-welded together, were coiled around floating drums. One end of the pipe was fixed to a terminal point; as the floating drums were towed across the English Channel, the pipe was pulled off the drum. In this manner, pipeline connections were made between the fuel supply depots in England and distribution points on the European continent to support the Allied invasion of Europe. No known further development work or commercial use of the technique of laying pipe offshore from reels was carried out after World War II. After a hiatus of about fifteen years, research into the reel pipelaying technique was renewed and was carried on by Gurtler, Herbert & Co, Inc of New Orleans, La. (USA); by 1961, Gurtler, Herbert had sufficiently advanced the reel pipelaying technique to make it a commercially acceptable and viable method of laying pipe in the offshore petroleum industry, able to compete with the traditional stovepiping technique. The first known commercial pipelaying reel barge, called the U-303 was built by Aquatic Contractors and Engineers, Inc, a subsidiary of Gurtler, Herbert, in 1961. The U-303 utilised a large vertical-axis reel, permanently mounted on a barge and having horizontally orientated flanges (generally referred to in the trade as a "horizontal reel"). A combined straightener/level winder was employed for spooling pipe onto the reel and for straightening pipe as it was unspooled. The U-303 first laid pipe commercially in September 1961, in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana and was used successfully during the 1960's to lay several million linear feet of pipe of up to 6 inches diameter. I worked a few times on the U-303, which I think was a converted hull from an old LST. The oil industry used a bunch. Chevron had 4 or 5 which I also work on or off of. Anyway the main supervision on the U-303 were named Larry, Moe and Curley. Once we laid some small pipe to be pulled up a J-tube and the jughead was telling the tug to pull, pull. But he was talking to wrong tug which pulled the barge anchors back across the pipe we had just laid. A deck full of cut up scrap. A link to where I found some of this. A popup will come up. Just close then hit the back button. If you’d like to read. Maybe I’ll add to this later. Also in upper right corner is more junk http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...-pipelayer.htm __________________ I've haven't left very deep footprints in the sands of time. But, boy I've left a bunch.