Thrusters and more !

When your in an airplane and the flight attendants say, “ladies and gentlemen we have now reached our cruising altitude of 30,000 ft....”. So look out the window and thats how far down we are drilling offshore. I never thought about what 30,000 ft actually looks like until this guy painted the picture into my head. THINK ABOUT IT!!!!!!! THAT IS DEEP !!!!!!!!

Anyways, we are drilling that deep, while floating on the ocean. This is pretty amazing! How does the boat stay positioned for that long? It seems impossible, when you think about it. We are floating, so we are not bottom supported, and we have to stay in the exact same spot. The ocean is not always a smooth place, so we have to compensate for wind, waves, and currents.

How do we do that you ask???THRUSTERS 


So today I got to go see the thrusters at the bottom of the ship.  Normally to stay in one spot you would have an anchor, which by the way this ships anchor is HUGE! Since we are drilling in deep-ultra deep waters 2000-10000 ft, we can’t really throw out the anchor. The thrusters are part of the dynamic positioning system. This system is what keeps us in place! On the ship I’m on we have six thrusters. Three on each side. Walking down to where the thrusters are was overwhelming. It was loud and powerful. The thrusters are at the very bottom of the ship. Just one is huge and we have six! Heres what a thruster looks like. 

So I see how the ship positions itself and it makes sense to me! My questions now lie on what engineering skills created this ship to be stable and not tip over. It truly seems impossible! If you look how high the Derek is and you see how long and narrow the ship is, it is a little unnerving. I guess I will just have to trust that the guys in the marine department know what they are doing, because we haven't tipped yet ! 

Hopefully I get to go on another drill ship adventure today, and learn some more about it! Its such a better experience out here when you get to be in awe of the technology and see how truly remarkable and mind blowing this is! 

P.S. Mom next time I'm gonna bring sparkling water! I'm Dying out here, I want a Perrier or Pellegrino sooooo bad with crushed Ice. If I could pick two things It would be a hair dryer and fizzy water! My hair dryer fried in my room due to a converter voltage issue, so I am forced to have curly frizzy hair!

anyways love you all,
Hill