''Ocean Ranger'' was a

semi-submersible Semi-submersible may refer to a self-propelled vessel, such as: * Heavy-lift ship, which partially submerge to allow their cargo (another ship) to float into place for transport *Narco-submarine, some of which remained partially on the surface * ...

mobile offshore drilling unit that sank in Canadian waters on 15 February 1982. It was drilling an exploration well on the

Grand Banks of Newfoundland The Grand Banks of Newfoundland are a series of underwater plateaus south-east of the island of Newfoundland on the North American continental shelf. The Grand Banks are one of the world's richest fishing grounds, supporting Atlantic cod, swordf ...

, east of

St. John's, Newfoundland St. John's is the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, located on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland. The city spans and is the easternmost city in North America ...

, for Mobil Oil of Canada, Ltd. (MOCAN) with 84 crew members on board when it sank. There were no survivors.

History and design

''Ocean Ranger'' was designed and owned by Ocean Drilling and Exploration Company, Inc. (ODECO) of

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

. The vessel was a self-propelled large semi-submersible design with a drilling facility and living quarters. It was capable of operation beneath of ocean water and could drill to a maximum depth of . It was described by ODECO as the world's largest semi-submersible oil rig to date. Constructed for ODECO in 1976 by

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is a Japanese multinational engineering, electrical equipment and electronics corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. MHI is one of the core companies of the Mitsubishi Group and its automobile division is the predecessor of Mitsubishi Mo ...

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...

, Japan, ''Ocean Ranger'' was long, wide, and high. It had twelve anchors. The weight was 25,000 tons. It was floating on two long pontoons that rested below the surface. The vessel was approved for 'unrestricted ocean operations' and designed to withstand extremely harsh conditions at sea, including winds and waves. Prior to moving to the

Grand Banks The Grand Banks of Newfoundland are a series of underwater plateaus south-east of the island of Newfoundland on the North American continental shelf. The Grand Banks are one of the world's richest fishing grounds, supporting Atlantic cod, swordf ...

area in November 1980, it had operated off the coasts of

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

and Ireland.

Sinking

On 26 November 1981, ''Ocean Ranger'' commenced drilling well J-34, its third well in the

Hibernia Oil Field Hibernia is an oil field in the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately east-southeast of St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, in 80 m of water.Hurley, T.J., Kreisa, R.D., Taylor, G.G., and Yates, W.R.L., 1992, The Reservoir Geology and Geophysics ...

. ''Ocean Ranger'' was still working on this well in February 1982 when the incident occurred. Two other

platforms were also drilling nearby: ''Sedco 706'', NNE, and ''Zapata'' ''Ugland'', N of ''Ocean Ranger''. On 14 February 1982, the platforms received reports of an approaching storm linked to a major

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

cyclone from NORDCO Ltd, the company responsible for issuing offshore weather forecasts. The usual method of preparing for bad weather involved hanging-off the drill pipe at the sub-sea

wellhead A wellhead is the component at the surface of an oil or gas well that provides the structural and pressure-containing interface for the drilling and production equipment. The primary purpose of a wellhead is to provide the suspension point and ...

and disconnecting the riser from the sub-sea

blowout preventer A blowout preventer (BOP) (pronounced B-O-P, not "bop") is a specialized valve or similar mechanical device, used to seal, control and monitor oil and gas wells to prevent blowouts, the uncontrolled release of crude oil or natural gas from a w ...

. Due to surface difficulties and the speed at which the storm developed, the crew of ''Ocean Ranger'' was forced to shear the drill pipe after hanging-off, after which they disconnected the riser in the early evening. At about 19:00 local time, the nearby ''Sedco 706'' experienced a large

rogue wave Rogue waves (also known as freak waves, monster waves, episodic waves, killer waves, extreme waves, and abnormal waves) are unusually large, unpredictable, and suddenly appearing surface waves that can be extremely dangerous to ships, even to lar ...

which damaged some items on deck and caused the loss of a life raft. Soon after, radio transmissions were heard from ''Ocean Ranger'', describing a broken portlight (a

porthole A porthole, sometimes called bull's-eye window or bull's-eye, is a generally circular window used on the hull of ships to admit light and air. Though the term is of maritime origin, it is also used to describe round windows on armored vehicle ...

window) and water in the ballast control room, with discussions on how best to repair the damage. ''Ocean Ranger'' reported experiencing storm seas of , with the odd wave up to , thus leaving the unprotected portlight at above the water line vulnerable to wave damage. Some time after 21:00, radio conversations originating on ''Ocean Ranger'' were heard on ''Sedco 706'' and ''Zapata Ugland'', noting that valves on ''Ocean Rangers ballast control panel appeared to be opening and closing of their own accord. The radio conversations also discussed the winds and waves up to high. Through the remainder of the evening, routine radio traffic passed between ''Ocean Ranger'', its neighboring rigs and their individual support boats. Nothing out of the ordinary was noted. At 00:52 local time, on 15 February, a

Mayday Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice-procedure radio communications. It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency primarily by aviators and mariners, but in some countries local organiza ...

call was sent out from ''Ocean Ranger'', noting a severe list to the port side of the rig and requesting immediate assistance. This was the first communication from ''Ocean Ranger'' identifying a major problem. The standby vessel, the M/V ''Seaforth Highlander'', was requested to come in close as countermeasures against the 10–15-degree list were proving ineffective. The onshore MOCAN supervisor was notified of the situation, and the

Canadian Forces } The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF; french: Forces armées canadiennes, ''FAC'') are the unified military forces of Canada, including sea, land, and air elements referred to as the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army, and Royal Canadian Air Force. ...

and Mobil-operated helicopters were alerted just after 01:00 local time. The M/V ''Boltentor'' and the M/V ''Nordertor'', the standby boats of ''Sedco 706'' and ''Zapata Ugland'' respectively, were also dispatched to ''Ocean Ranger'' to provide assistance. At 01:30 local time, ''Ocean Ranger'' transmitted its last message: "There will be no further radio communications from ''Ocean Ranger''. We are going to lifeboat stations." Shortly thereafter, in the middle of the night and in the midst of severe winter weather, the crew abandoned the platform. The platform remained afloat for another ninety minutes, sinking between 03:07 and 03:13 local time. All of ''Ocean Ranger'' sank beneath the Atlantic: by the next morning all that remained was a few buoys. Her entire complement of 84 workers – 46 Mobil employees and 38 contractors from various service companies – were killed. While the rig was provided with an Emergency Procedures Manual which detailed evacuation procedures, it is unclear how effectively the platform evacuation was carried out. There is evidence that at least one lifeboat was successfully launched with up to 36 crew inside, and witnesses on the M/V ''Seaforth Highlander'' reported seeing at least 20 crew members in the water at the same time, indicating that at least 56 crew successfully evacuated the rig. The

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mult ...

report speculated that 'these men either chose to enter the water directly or were thrown into the water as a result of unsuccessful lifesaving equipment launching'. Rescue attempts by the standby vessels were hampered by the adverse weather conditions and the conclusion that the standby boats were neither equipped nor configured to rescue casualties from a cold sea. As a result of the severe weather, the first helicopter did not arrive on scene until 02:30 local time, by which time most if not all of ''Ocean Rangers crew had succumbed to

hypothermia Hypothermia is defined as a body core temperature below in humans. Symptoms depend on the temperature. In mild hypothermia, there is shivering and mental confusion. In moderate hypothermia, shivering stops and confusion increases. In severe h ...

and drowned. Over the next week, 22 bodies were recovered from the North Atlantic. Autopsies indicated that those men had died as a result of drowning while in a hypothermic state. In related activity the following day, the Soviet

container ship A container ship (also called boxship or spelled containership) is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermodal ...

'' Mekhanik Tarasov'' was struck by the same weather conditions as ''Ocean Ranger'', approximately to the east. The battered Soviet freighter listed dramatically for hours before sinking with the loss of 32 of 37 crew.

Causes and effects

The remains of the platform were found by sonar search over the following weeks, resting in an inverted position approximately south-east of the wellhead, surrounded by major items of debris such as the derrick. The platform had capsized bow-first, turning over and striking the sea floor with the forward ends of the platform's pontoons. The

Marine Board of Investigation report on the disaster summarised the chain of events as follows: *A large wave appeared to cause a broken portlight; *The broken portlight allowed the ingress of sea water into the ballast control room; *The ballast control panel malfunctioned or appeared to malfunction to the crew; *As a result of this malfunction or perceived malfunction, several valves in the platform's ballast control system opened due to a short circuit, or were manually opened by the crew; *''Ocean Ranger'' assumed a forward list; *As a result of the forward list, boarding seas began flooding the forward chain lockers located in the forward corner support columns; *The forward list worsened; *The pumping of the forward tanks was not possible using the usual ballast control method as the magnitude of the forward list created a vertical distance between the forward tanks and the ballast pumps located astern that exceeded the suction available on the ballast system's pumps; *Detailed instructions and personnel trained in the use of the ballast control panel were not available; *At some point, the crew blindly attempted to manually operate the ballast control panel using brass control rods; *At some point, the manually operated sea valves in both pontoons were closed; *Progressive flooding of the chain lockers and subsequent flooding of the upper deck resulted in a loss of buoyancy great enough to cause the platform to capsize. A Canadian Royal Commission spent two years looking into the disaster. The joint Federal-Provincial Royal Commission on the Ocean Ranger Marine Disaster found that the crew were not trained, the safety equipment was inadequate, there were no safety protocols for the supply ship, and that the platform itself had a number of flaws. The Royal Commission concluded that ''Ocean Ranger'' had design and construction flaws, particularly in the ballast control room, and that the crew lacked proper safety training,

survival suit A survival suit, more accurately and currently referred to as an immersion suit, is a type of waterproof dry suit intended to protect the wearer from hypothermia if immersed in cold water or otherwise exposed after abandoning a vessel, especial ...

s and equipment. The Royal Commission also concluded that inspection and regulation by United States and Canadian government agencies was ineffective. In addition to key recommendations for Canada's offshore oil and gas industry, the commission recommended that the federal government invest annually in research and development for search and rescue technologies, such as improving the design of lifesaving equipment—a commitment that has been met in every fiscal year since 1982.

Aftermath

In August 1983, the wreck of ''Ocean Ranger'' was refloated and sunk in deeper waters by the Dutch firm Wijsmuller Salvage. Since its sinking the previous year, concerns over the wreck's position had been made by the federal government. As the wreck of ''Ocean Ranger'' was situated at an approximate 30 metres below the water, the wreck posed a danger to shipping. The operation saw ''Ocean Ranger'' towed upside down with her two pontoons breaking the surface. Operations had commenced earlier in June. However progress was halted when two salvage divers were killed on the wreck by an underwater explosion on 20 June. A stop-work order on refloating the wreck was declared and an investigation into the incident followed. However, exploratory diving was allowed to continue. A second incident on 26 June saw a third diver killed, believed to have been hit by a dropped object as he attempted to return to the surface. Lawsuits arising from the sinking were settled out of court with a package cumulatively valued at $20 million. A permanent monument to those who died was created on the grounds of the Confederation Building, the seat of the provincial government of Newfoundland. A documentary film, ''The Ocean Ranger Disaster'' (2002), was released only in Canada. In fiction, Canadian author Lisa Moore's novel, ''February'' (2009), depicts the life of a woman whose husband died aboard the oil rig. Canadian folk singer-songwriter

Ron Hynes Ron Hynes (December 7, 1950 – November 19, 2015) was a folk singer-songwriter from Newfoundland and Labrador. He was especially known for his composition "Sonny's Dream", which has been recorded worldwide by many artists and was named the 41st ...

wrote a song called "Atlantic Blue" (1988) as a tribute to the crew of ''Ocean Ranger''. In January 2012, a non-fiction book, ''The Ocean Ranger: Remaking the Promise of Oil'' was published in Canada by

Fernwood Publishing Fernwood Publishing is an independent Canadian publisher that publishes non-fiction books dealing with social justice and issues of social, political and economic importance. Fernwood was founded in 1991 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, publishing its fi ...

. The book's author, Susan Dodd, lost her older brother Jim with the sinking of the ''Ocean Ranger'' and watched, for years, as her parents pursued legal struggles with the oil companies.

References

External links