Yeah I did a lot of the development on barrens chat whilst I was at sea believe it or not. I deployed three patches over the ship’s satellite internet :lol:
I have no reason not to believe you - Haha good work! :)
@Jon Bloodspray is an ex-sailor too though he worked the cruise ships.
And I would never do it (cruise ship) again. If I wanted to be back at sea I would definitely go full Merchant Marine.
Regarding the mental strain on those divers and other sailors, I'll just say there's a reason you are off for weeks at a time between deployments.
The divers are the real superstars - they work at mad depths (up to about 200m - 600ft) doing very intense work on expensive assets. They’re like freaking astronauts - they stay pressurised to the depth they are working at for the whole month. So they live in saturation chambers onboard the ship and are fed through an airlock and go to their shift by way of a diving bell - all kept at the correct pressure.
Here’s a pic of a deep sea diver off wikipedia:
Sounds pretty intense. They must get paid big money for that kind of work.
Do they at least get to play WoW in their saturation chambers?
I got claustrophobic just by imagining living under the sea in a small chamber for 10 minutes, let alone one month!
Success!
Seems very scary to drive that lol
Hey guys,
Just wanted to say (a kind of disclaimer I guess?) that I'm going to be quite busy over the next two weeks in real life. For those of you who don't know I'm at the end of a three year training program in which I have learned how to drive one of these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDSpAz43Mu4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIQHNIefx3Y
Shove off, old dwarf. He will do fine!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDSpAz43Mu4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIQHNIefx3Y
Shove off, old dwarf. He will do fine!
Wait, so if they stay down there for the entire month... Do they just float around the ocean floor or do they have some mini house? Where does da poop go? 👀
But really, that sounds insanely depressing. I don't think I would last more than 1-2 days maximum and be scared for life or something. Especially the lack of noise and light.
Wait, so if they stay down there for the entire month... Do they just float around the ocean floor or do they have some mini house? Where does da poop go? 👀
Okay will try to explain this as best I can.
As we all know, if you go diving and resurface too quickly you get the ‘bends’ - where the nitrogen gas in your blood starts to form bubbles. It is agonising and it will most certainly kill you. That’s only at relatively shallow depths too.
Every metre of seawater depth the pressure increases rapidly. A typical water depth at which the guys are working on the seabed at is much deeper than scuba, typically around 150m, a depth at which is the pressure is equivalent to 16 bar (surface atmospheric pressure is 1 bar), or for americans thats about 230 PSI. That’s a lot of pressure squeeze!
It takes a day or two to ‘blow down’ (slowly pressurise) the divers to this pressure, and even longer to slowly and safely depressurise them (a week). So in order to complete these construction jobs, which take a while, there has to be a solution to these very inhospitable conditions vs human bodies which is simple: they just keep them at that pressure for the duration of their trip.
The divers go into a ‘saturation chamber’ on the ship itself - basically a series of tubes connected together with beds, toilet, showers etc. everything they need to live as comfortably as possible for their month of work. They enter, are blown down to 16 atmospheres, and the chamber stays at 16 atmospheres the whole month.
To go to work they go through another tube into a ‘diving bell’ also at 16 bar, which is then sealed off from the sat chamber and lowered to the seabed. They swim out of the bottom of the bell at the seabed, where the pressure is also 16 bar. They do 6 hours of work in teams of 3 and then go back into the bell, back up to the ship, and back into the sat chambers to rest, again at 16 bar. Then the other team go down in the second bell etc.
So around the clock we have divers working and can operate both bells simultaneously. They are kept at the same pressure the whole time, until they are decompressed towards the end of their trip.
They have a whole team of guys called life support who monitor and regulate their atmosphere and pressure, the gases they breathe, feed them (through an airlock), wash their clothes, control their hot water flow when working, and deal with any emergency. We have special pressurised lifeboats for them if we have to abandon ship,
Another team called dive control lower the bells, communicate with them about what to do on the seabed/construction progress, and are responsible for keeping them safe on the job. Dive control talk to me and ask me to move the vessel around on the surface so that we stay on top of the divers or wherever the workplace is.
Their poo goes into a sewage holding tank, then into a comminuting and disinfecting machine, then a sewage treatment plant, and out the other end as fresh water which goes into our fresh water tanks and is totally safe to drink. We also make fresh water out of seawater with a reverse osmosis plant.
:)
Godspeed, Captain Teebling.
Saturation diving (or any decompression diving) is fucking hardcore. I'm a recreational diver myself and I got the bends while diving in 2017
- had to spend a few hours in a deco chamber. Definitely a scary experience but I sure as hell ain't giving up diving, it's one of the greatest activities I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing in life.
Keep 'em safe out there Teebs. ;-)
Best of luck Teebling - if you put the kind of dedication into your work, as you do with the site, then you got this covered for sure!
That's absolutely crazy. I had no idea this kind of stuff goes on!
I see, so they actually do come out of those suits? Like is the area where there are beds and such dry? Just pressurized? That was mostly what I was confused about. I wondered if they bobbed around in those suits down there for a month.
Super interesting, though. Thanks for the explanation!
I wondered if they bobbed around in those suits down there for a month.
How would you take a shit if you were stuck in a diving suit for a month? Living conditions in there would get real bad real quick :lol:
They live in a pressure chamber for a month
Which in itself is pretty crazy, just not living inside a diving suit floating around in the ocean for a month crazy :lol:
Their poo goes into a sewage holding tank, then into a comminuting and disinfecting machine, then a sewage treatment plant, and out the other end as fresh water which goes into our fresh water tanks and is totally safe to drink.
Good luck man! If you need someone to play your character while you're away, just let me know haha
Their poo goes into a sewage holding tank, then into a comminuting and disinfecting machine, then a sewage treatment plant, and out the other end as fresh water which goes into our fresh water tanks and is totally safe to drink.
Their poo goes into a sewage holding tank, then into a comminuting and disinfecting machine, then a sewage treatment plant, and out the other end as fresh water which goes into our fresh water tanks and is totally safe to drink.
I'd still drink it over Los Angeles water.
Good luck!
It’s tomorrow morning guys, I’ll see you all on the other side!
It’s tomorrow morning guys, I’ll see you all on the other side!
Give em hell Teebs.
