Episode 5. Richard Powell & the Rowan Gorilla 1

On December 15th 1988, the oil drilling rig, Rowan Gorilla 1  capsized in hurricane conditions 500 nautical miles southeast of Nova Scotia. Longtime oil and gas professional Richard Powell was one of 27 people who evacuated the rig and talks with host Dan Latremouille about that day. Get ready to sink into Legacy; Survival Stories.

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Transcript

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The time is December 15th, 1988. The place is five hundred nautical miles southeast of Nova Scotia. The situation is as follows. The drilling rig, Rowan Gorilla one is being towed across the Atlantic through hurricane conditions, 40 to 60 foot waves and sustained 60 knot winds. Around noon, the captain of the towing vessel, Smit London, advised the rig manager that the Rowan Gorilla one was in imminent danger of capsize. This is legacy survival stories. Then you go down, you go down, so now legacy survival stories. Welcome to Legacy Survival Stories. My name is Dan Latremouille and I'll be your host. We have an amazing guest today. He's a long time offshore oil and gas professional, spending his entire career on the drilling side of that industry. He worked offshore from about 1979 till about 2014. Most of his career was in Canada, although he is a well traveled and worldly individual. He's a warehouse of stories. And we're going to start downloading some of his mental archives today. Please welcome the enthralling Richard Powell. Welcome to the show, Richard. OK, thanks, Dan. I'll try and live up to that awesome introduction. All one can do is try, but I don't think you need to. I think your stories speak for themselves. So let's begin at the beginning of your professional career. So you came. Are you from Nova Scotia originally? Yep. Born and raised in Halifax. So did you go to school? Like, did you finish high school and then go on to a vocational school or did you go to the university or go right to work? No, I went to public school here in Halifax, and then in high school I got sent to a private school in Racine, New Brunswick. OK. La di da. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't really like, you know, let me tell you. OK, so you finished that school and then how did you end up working? How did you end up offshore? Because if you started back in 1979, that would have been pretty new to the industry for Canada. Yes. Well, I had been living in Alberta and I came home for the summer and, you know, when I needed money like everybody else. And I was told that there was an oil rig off a seeable island and they'd be hiring painters for the summer. So I went over and applied. And the first day I went there, I applied the secretaries, to asked me if I had any experience. And I said no. And she said, OK, well, we're not even accept an application from you. We only want people with experience. So about a month later, I went back again and the office was packed full of people. And I was lucky enough. I spoke to this gentleman and he gave me an application to fill out. And I thought, oh, here we go, another application. Right. And I finished that and he asked me if I could go to a doctor's appointment tomorrow and the following day could I go to the rig. And so, of course, you know, very excited. I said yes. Yeah. And so we say yes. And then figure it out. That's right. Yeah. So I got a job from the Otoko Gulf Tide. OK, fantastic. So you go to a doctor's point, which I'm assuming then would have been an offshore medical to make sure that you were sort of suitably healthy to go work in. Yeah, but it was the medical definitely weren't as intensive as they are today. You know, he just put, you know, coffee and that was that. Turn your head and cough and. Yeah, yeah, that's right. OK, so so does it happen then, the very next day? Are you going offshore? Yeah. And then, you know, two days later, after I went to the office that time, then I was on the helicopter, you know. You know, heading off to see the island. Had you ever been on a helicopter? No, no, no. So that was, you know, hey, it was all pretty exciting. I bet it was. I bet it was a helicopter ride out of the blue. Yeah, that's that's I mean, that's not something that happens to most people in the run of a day. And back then, there was no training or anything. Right. They just took you OK. There you got on the chopper and the way you went and. Okay, so you fly out there. Helicopter flying time. What? What? You know what I got I got to ask as a as a helicopter affection, Adobe, what helicopter are you flying? Was it like an old sixty one? Yeah, exactly. That was the old 60 ones back then. Beautiful. Yeah. I still I still enjoyed, you know, flying on those because they always lots of room and they felt very safe. You had your own window, your own window, if something ever happened. Right. And I want everybody at home to take note of that. Those pleasant comments are actually in reference to the commercial version of a Sea King helicopter, as Sixty-One is the commercial version of of what we have made fun of in Canada, the Sea Kings. We always make jokes about pirates falling out of the sky, but most people who have flown in them. Well, there's a reason they lasted for 50 odd years as as a staple helicopter in the military. It's not because they were unreliable. So there you are flying offshore in a Sixty-One and flying off to an older coal platform. And this is out near Sable Island. Yeah. Yeah, offshore seeable. And it was it was an old it was a four legged jack up, which is the story goes was designed by Howard Hughes. Really? Yeah. So for the folks at home, quick synopsis. And who's Howard Hughes? Howard Hughes was a very wealthy industrialist who went on to to make a lot of equipment for the for the oil field as well. Right. You know, drill bits and other equipment is Texan guy with me? I do believe that's the only. So the story goes anyway. Right. We'll have to do a little background research on that later on. So you're not a four legged jack up. And for the folks at home, you'd have a hard time finding even a pitcher of. Four legged jack up now, I think they're mostly went to three legs. Yeah. Sort of a triangular shape. And and again, for the folks at home, a jack up is called a jack up because it's a it is a floating installation with these great big legs that stick out from it. And when it gets to its location, they usually use barges or something to tow it in place. And when they've got it where they want it, these legs go down and they stand on the bottom. And then the platform can actually jack itself up or down on the legs. So it's it's actually one of those things that's a bit of a marvel of engineering. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Is it is it's you know, and now the rig back then is we had to jack up, had to shimmies, and it took a long time to jack up. And now today, you know, they jack up fairly, you know, rapidly. Yeah. They get some kind of like a big motor we'll take. Yeah, they do. And I think like a foot and a half a minute or something like that. So when you say Schmidt, I mean, like literally like sort of crank up one side, put a put a put a pin underneath it, and then crank up the other side, put a pair of four legs going real slow. How long would it take to actually Jack? Oh, I don't even remember. It seemed to have taken all night and then. So what kind of air gap are we talking about? Like how high off the water were you back then? I'm not sure what the air gap would have been on the Gulf tide. But later on, you know, with the with the gorillas, you know, we'd have somewhere between 70 and 90 feet irga. OK, so and again, for the folks at home, when they put these platforms in place offshore, they're trying to allow for the maximum, the biggest wave that they think they might see while the platform is out there. So in in Nova Scotia and in eastern Canada at large, where the weather is basically crappy, they frequently have to put an air gap or set an air gap of, as Richard points out, 70, 80, 90 feet to allow for big waves to go underneath them, because you wouldn't want the platform to get rolled over by a big wave. No, no. That's right. You know, so last thing you want to hear is the wave slapping the bottom of the hull. No, that would be very disconcerting. Yes. Have you ever heard that? No, I've never heard it myself. Really? Yeah. OK. But I know that I've come back to the rig and other people have talked about hearing it. Oh, boy. Yeah. Yeah. Give you some nightmares. Yes. Now, let's fast forward a little bit to your where you started with Rowan. When did that begin? Okay. That would have been about eighty four. 1984, OK. About 1984, yeah. All right. So you're now been working offshore in the oil and gas industry for five years or so. Yeah. And I assume that you didn't just stick with the painting that you started with. No, no. I was when I came to work for Roane, I was assistant driller on the Subhadra rig. OK, so I came as the assistant driller, but I was put back as a roughneck, a foreman. So just do us a favor maybe for the folks back home. Just walk us through sort of the hierarchy of somebody who works in the drilling side of oil and gas drilling for the offshore. What is what is what is that career path look like? Well, when you started on the rig, you're as a roustabout, which is a lot of scrubbing and cleaning and painting and keeping the decks organized to grunt work. Yes, correct. Yup. And then you move up the floor hand or roughneck, and that's going to be working on the drill floor, you know, handling the pipe as you writing the pipe in the hole or pulling it all out and doing all the duties associated associated with maintaining the drilling equipment. Okay. Right on. And then what comes after. So that was roughneck. And what comes after that? When you go downstairs to the pump room where you were an assistant, dairymen and your duties then are maintaining the pumps and maintaining the mud. So what's the mud? Yeah, I know, but the mud is the people, you know, think about mud is when you're a kid playing, you know, with mud puddles, whatever. But the mud today in the use on the oil rigs, this might as a university education. Yeah, it's you know, they're masters. Yeah. Yeah, there's there's a lot into it. It's a very important part. You know, it cools and lubricates your drill string. It holds the formation oil or gas back into the formation. So, yeah, the mine is very important. The and again, for the folks back home in the current oil and gas industry, and of course, right this minute, the whole oil and gas on a global scale is sort of in a bit of a slump. But Mud Engineer is is literally a university educated position. And drilling platforms now would have university educated, not just one person. There's probably two or three MIT engineers right now that exist. And so to to create this motor, mix, this mud, or I guess they chemically treated it. Yeah. There's you know, even if it's a water based mud or oil based mud, there's lots of different chemicals that go into it to, you know, to maintain the mud. To keep it in good shape. Well, it's interesting stuff, I have to say, I find the science of drilling. I mean, it's at it's at its core. Drilling is a simple concept. You know, you're taking something, spinning it and poking holes into something. But the science of it and how you how you mitigate the pressures and how another, get directional drilling and bending it and wrap it around. I mean, there's some pretty neat stuff there. Yeah. The technology is definitely used, you know, has grown quite a bit since ice war started. OK, so now we're into the mid 80s and we've got our. So you said you were assistant driller by this point. Yeah. Okay. And now you're working for Rowan and Rowan. So back in those days, the Rowand Gorilla series of platforms, Jakob's, all Jakob's began around then. And you were working on the rolling gorilla one, correct? Yeah. All right. So now we're getting to the crux of our of our today's adventure. And Richard is out there working on the rowing gorilla one. And now you're going to have to jump in and fill me in on the details. From what I understand, the rowing gorilla was being moved from one location to another, is that right? Yes, that's correct. We're in Halifax Harbor, you know, quite a while, actually, and we are looking for work in many was coming up. So we were told the rig is it was going, you know, going away, looking for work. And we were told it was either Trinidad or in the U.K. We were going, OK, Great Yarmouth. So when you say that the wrong girl is looking for work, literally the platform there was, it was not being hired. Right. Right. So so the company, Rowan was looking for someone. Someone, please take this thing and right to work anything. And so when we left Halifax, we were told we didn't know where we're going. It was either Great Yarmouth or Trinidad. Wait, so you left the harbor and they didn't actually even have it. They just started telling you and they didn't even have a final destination? Yes, that's what we were led to believe. Yeah. So I had all my shorts and summer equipment ready for Trinidad and all my long johns that we ended up in the North Sea. Note one from the narrator. A few days after recording this episode, Richard Powell contacted us again and updated us with a few more facts that were relevant to the story. One of the new facts that Richard brought forth was a directive from the company bigwigs who had instructed the crew aboard the Rowin Gorilla one to take the rigs only lifeboat or capsule out of its launching davits and secure it to the deck of the rig. The idea behind this was to limit or eliminate any damage that the lifeboat might take while bashing around in the rough weather on the oncoming trip. The only problem with this idea is that the rig only had the one lifeboat. So by taking it out of service and securing it to the deck, the crew would be left without any operational lifeboat to use. If things went wrong during the voyage. Now, just prior to the Rolling Gorilla One's departure from Halifax, there were representatives from the Canadian government Marine Division who came down for a visit and a routine inspection on the rig prior to departure. When they noticed that the lifeboat had been secured to the deck and was not operational, these government officials wouldn't allow the rig to depart the harbor and begin their voyage without reinstating the lifeboat in its davits. This change just before the departure of the rig resulted in some significant consequences later on in the story. I think when when when things started getting bad, we off of Boston, around 500 miles off of Boston, OK, and we had we had already been told then that we were heading to Great Yarmouth. Trinidad had been ruled out. So everyone shed a tear. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's right. Because it would have been happy times working in the lovely climate of the Caribbean. But OK, North Sea. That's all right. So we left Halifax and I can remember that, you know, it was beautiful, calm weather, OK? Oh. And people were saying, oh, well, this is boring. I hope gets a little more exciting than this fateful words. So, yes. Yes, indeed. So for context here now this the platform has left Halifax Harbor. How many people are on it? There are twenty seven of us onboard the rig. OK, was that the normal working complement to the rig? No, no, no. Normal, normal work and compliment was probably up in the 80s somewhere. OK, so how come only 27? Well, just because we were on a tow and so we only needed the people to, you know, for doing all the checks, you know, walking around the rig and doing all the checks, making sure that everything was OK. OK, so so because it wasn't working per se, like the platform wasn't working. It wasn't drilling. So this is really sort of a skeleton crew to just to keep the systems out. OK. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So and we had one boat, the Smith one, which was towing us. OK. And I guess, you know, after a few days, you know, the weather did start picking up and, you know, things started getting a little more exciting, but not as requested. Yeah. Yes. But, you know, things you know, there was no there was the water was not ever calming down. We were just I think there was like a couple of different storms. It was almost like a perfect storm. You know, these storms had met and and it just kept getting worse and worse. So are we talking a couple of hours is getting worse? Oh, no, we're a couple of days. OK, so we're in two days now. All right. So days and the storms, whatever systems are aligning and it's getting worse and worse over days now. So how many days are we talking about here? Oh, I guess it was probably three days that we were you know, things were getting bad. And like I say, you know, these we were starting to take on water. You know, the waves are getting, you know, quite high and coming across the deck. And so when you say quite high coming across the deck, what would the how high off the water would the deck be? Are we talking? Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, then what if it is a wet tow? I should have told you that earlier. This is a wet tow. Like nowadays they have heavy lift vessels that they put jack ups on. Okay. But back in the day, you know, we were you know, they didn't think it was necessary. Oh. So when you say we were talking about literally just put this thing down, load it in the water. That's right. Or tow line on it and start pulling. We had all the legs above us. You know, back then, I think the legs on on that rig were five hundred and four feet. And so we went we had you know, we had mowed all that mostly was above the deck. And so we only had a few feet of leg down below the hull. OK, so this would be a funny looking picture for for anybody back home. If you're trying to imagine if you've never seen what this looks like, if you can imagine a let's call it a small apartment building floating on the water with five hundred foot legs sticking out from each corner, a strange looking thing to be sure, and a strange looking thing to be seen going through the giant waves. But OK. Yeah. And so, you know, there was there was lots of little stories that all happened. You know, where we were in this storm. You know, we had waves coming across the deck. You know, we had sea Kan's containers that were tacked to the deck plus with chains over them and chain binders, you know, holding them down. And we had some waves that were coming in, taking these containers, breaking them through, you know, free of their welds and the chains and everything. And they these containers were, you know, moving around. So sea containers that are welded to the deck and chained down and they're being knocked loose and then just bashing around. Yeah. Oh, goodness. Yeah. Yeah. So we we had a hatch cover that was ripped off as well. And we had, you know, water was flooding downstairs. OK, so now you've got holes in sort of the main deck and it's letting water come in. And so now you're taking on water from the top down kind of thing. Right. Oh, goodness. Okay. So so okay. Then it was it was we had some more submersible pumps down there and we were using the submersible pumps to pump the water, you know, get rid of the water downstairs. But it was unfortunately, it was a losing battle. OK, so are we still in sort of a D3 or are we going to do for now? Oh, no. We're there's probably D3 still, you know. What are the what are the tension levels like of the for the people on board? Oh, I think that, you know, we were on the biggest rig in the world sort of thing back then, big as jack up. And I think that we thought everything was, you know, whether it was a little scary, you know, because the seas in the sea to the, you know, the storm. But we felt safe. You know, I didn't we didn't ever think that what happened, you know, was going to happen. OK. Oh, interesting. So. All right. So you're taking on water, but you're still feeling like the situation is relatively in hand. It's tense, but you're. Yeah, but you're feeling like. No, no. Absolutely. Yes. You know, and as assistant driller, my job is I was up in the radio room, you know, and I was watching the thrusters, which are like two big propellers, you know, that were help, help, help the tow vessel. And and so I was I was hearing all the radio comments back and forth, you know, between the boat in the rig and the captain of the of the boat. He calls this London, the captain of the summit, London. You know, he was telling us what he was seeing from his point of view. And he told us that he was reading another case where a jakab was being toast. I think it was over on on the West Coast. And he talked about the characteristics they were explaining on how that rig was behaving. And he was seeing the same characteristics in us. And, you know, and he said that that rig capsized and sank. And so he was seeing the same characteristics, you know, the way the rig was floating. So he is like a really a case study kind of thing. Yeah. OK. All right. Yeah. You know, and we also found that the rig was starting to list to the aft quite a bit and a point, I guess. So we had actually our rig welder went down inside, you know, our our the our tanks, our preload tanks, which I guess we preload tank is when we get the rig on location. We've all these Pirillo tanks that we fill up with water. And that is going to that attempts to put, what, about a hundred year storm would do to the bottom of the legs, to the to the legs. Oh, factsheet, you sort of artificially stressing it out almost as. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And so anyway, we found that these tanks were getting some leaks in them. You know, you had like close to 500 feet of leg, you know, above above the rig. And so when it was moving, it would have been flexing the hull. OK, a fair bit of torque on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so these when things were flexing, then the hole started to open up and then we started to take water into the preload tanks, you know. And so that was, you know, our handrails on the after the rig were always staying under the water by this time . OK, so it's listed badly enough that you're the top deck is basically touching the water the whole time now on the backside, correct? Yeah. OK, wow. You know, and that's what the Captain's McLendon told us, is that we're down there and we should be coming back, you know, but we're not. We're always staying under. So I know he he asked us to that time if we had our survival suits on and we didn't yet. But once he asked us, then that was the next thing we did. So let's let's rewind for before. He asked you if you had your survival suits on, were you still feeling reasonably relaxed and in control of the circumstance? Well, you know, I know that there were I guess there were some people that were worried, you know, just the your own in a big storm. Do you know, were people getting seasick? Not at this time. I don't think anybody was seasick on the rig. OK, well, we're on the rig, OK. All right. You know, but once once we were in the capsule, if we want to jump that far ahead, but once we're in the capsule, the seasick mystery, well, we'll get to that. Yeah, OK. All right. So the captain of the Sprint London is asking if you're in your survival suits yet. Yeah, I'm sure that that question must have created some pucker up moments. Yeah. Yes. Yes, it was. You know, and not only that, but he was we survival suits, but we should be preparing, getting ourselves ready to abandon ship. Oh, dear. Yeah. So that was you know, that was the last thing I think that any of us were really thinking about at this point in time. You know, we were still, you know, battling the water downstairs. And, you know, so, you know, this is the this is the only thing we had. So who's in charge of your platform? Who's in charge of the rig? Well, we had the rig superintendent was on board. He was he was doing he did have a senior person who was meant to be in charge of the rail. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And what were what were their thoughts on this? Well, I think that we were all sort of surprised. I used, you know, in I guess, also the IOTO line from the Smithland and had paid it too. OK, part I should I should at home part it being a fancy word for broken rate. Yes. So so we were on our own then at this time, just, you know, at the mercy of the storm, so to speak. Now you're just floating. You're just drifting, basically. Yes. We use the thrusters to try and keep us into into the waves, right into the storm. But I don't think that was that wasn't working very well. Well, it's the thrusters on that. I mean, it's not a ship, is it? I'm guessing that the thrusters would have limited ability to really maneuver. Yes. Well, we we didn't have riders. So you would have to alternate a RPM's on one thruster to another, you know, for you to try and create some steering today. Yeah. All right. So, OK, so now you've part of the total line you're listing badly, still managing the water and then the captain of this land and starts talking about immersion suits and abandoning ship. Yes. All right. So what happens now? Well, you know, we go boat. You know, I think the we had the phone down in Houston and tell them, you know, what was going on. You know, we had some strong radios at the time. What kind of revenues would they be not to wave? But we were. Would you have been using satellite phones, maybe? No. No, we didn't. We didn't have a satellite phone on board that I'm aware of. OK. All right. So when you say call Houston, was it like to use the radio to call the ship and. Yeah, the ship called. No, no, no. We spoke to Houston directly every morning. Back then, the rigs, all the rigs in their own fleet would get on on a phone call and give the Houston office an update of what the operations were. You know, people on board, whether just, you know, tell them what's going on. OK. And so I think that morning we had had the phone call, but we didn't we hadn't had this conversation with the captain of the landing yet. So after the the. Where are your emergency? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So after we after that conversation, then they would have called Houston and let them know that we were abandoning ship. And again, for the folks back home, Houston is the North American epicenter of all all things oil and gas. Most of the of the major oil and gas organizations have their offices in Houston. So although we're talking about rowand here, you could say Exxon, you could say Shell, you could name any of the any of the big major companies. And when they say call Houston, that means calling the head office, right? Correct. All right. So what is what does the head office do they do they have any direction or do they just go? Well, we had we had some questions for them, you know, about stability in the rig and in any way they were going to get back to us. And by the time we had decided to abandon the rig, they still hadn't gotten back to us. You know, I'm not sure that that's what I want to hear from. That's like calling nine one one and saying, you know, I'm bleeding out here. And they're like, OK, standby, we're going to talk to a doctor and then call you back. Well, that's not what I want to hear. Yeah, but I think they had some engineers looking into our problem, too, where they were trying to figure stuff out as well. You know what? What would be our best case scenario? What should we do? But somewhere in between you updating them and then looking into this information. Lo and behold, there's not enough time. So how does a decision. So you guys did abandon your venture? Yes. Yeah, we. How did that decision get made then? Was that from the London? Well, they didn't sort of make the decision. I mean, they for sure, they are the ones that are, you know, giving us our options. You know what they're seeing, you know, and these guys who were sailors, we weren't sailors, really. Right. You know, so they had they had the experience that we didn't. And so, yeah, when they told us and we'd made all the important phone calls, you know, made that we were abandoning ship and we all got in the capsule . And when we were all in and everybody was had their seatbelts on and we pulled the ring the lower into the water, and then we could not get the the hook released. You know, that's supposed to be a willis' hook. Yes. So we couldn't get that released. You know, it wasn't releasing. It was so that, you know, tugging us around. So I remember the Birju engineer he went for. He had a ratchet that would fix on that would fit on there to open the hook. And I think before he even got it on there, there was a big lurch. And we came for you, the rig. But the the captain of the Smithland. And he told us the story that he was watching us abandon. And when he saw the capsule go under the water, he turned around to his crew and said, they're gone. But then but then, you know, a couple of seconds later, we popped up and we were going we had the motor going and we spoke to the Smith Lanu and they gave us a course, you know, because we went they wanted to get us away from the rig. They didn't want us getting tangled up in the rig, hitting it and or, God forbid, if if it capsizes those 500 foot legs, you wouldn't want that coming down on top of. No, no. Exactly. So he gave us a course to steer to get away from the rig. Note to from the narrator during this podcast, I got so lost in Richard's story about the lifeboat misadventures that we both lost track of what happened to the rig after the lifeboat abandonment, according to Richard. The rig was now drifting on its own, foundering in the large waves and open sea conditions. The nearby vessels reported that the legs of the rig some 500 feet high. We're listing back and forth across a huge arc. Within an hour of the lifeboat abandonment, the entire rig actually capsized with its five hundred foot legs splashing into the water close enough to the lifeboat to cause the people inside to fear for their lives. Although thankfully, the legs did, in fact, miss the lifeboat. I think it was only probably a couple hours. You know, the sea state was so high wicket that our our cooling water was coming out of the water. And so for your for your life. For the lake. Yeah, for the life boat. So anyway, the motor overheated and that shut down. Oh, so but actually, because you weren't having a bad enough day, you need a broken down like bottled water. So but actually, I think I know I was relieved and maybe some other people were because that diesel motor was overheating. Everything read so much. And and the smell of the diesel, I think that all contributed, you know, to my seasickness anyway. OK, so now we're back to the sea sickness. Yes. How long did it take? Oh, I think that we were only in the water a few minutes, you know, before I was sick and I wasn't the first one. So, yeah, good. Did anybody not get seasick? I think that there were a couple, you know, two or three people. We had two girls on board. I don't think either one of them got sick. Really. And there one of one or other two, one or two white guys who never got seasick. OK. Most of us all had to turn out. Oh, yeah. Good for them. Lucky them. Dodging that bullet is I mean, I'm not prone to seasick, but I certainly have been seasick. And that is that is a rough way to spend time. Right. So now you've been you've abandoned ship, you're in the capsule, you've wrestled with the the hook release, which didn't work properly, but one way or another got free of that. And you're now floating free. And very shortly thereafter, the sea sickness begins. And so who's around you now? You've declared mayday. So the summit in London, I'm assuming, is still there. Yes, the summit. London is still there. And that's one of the things I have to say, that, you know, for people at sea, because there were a couple of other ships at all, you know, came and stood by waiting to see whether they could assist us in any way, you know, and we also had one of the Canadian destroyers with with a C king on it. And they were coming out and they were going to maybe attempt a rescue as well. So how many of us. So we're talking the summit London. We're talking to Destroyer and then a couple of the commercial. Yeah, there were some other ships that stood by as well. There was one other ship, a big ship that was going to stand by to maybe, you know, shelter us. Oh, big enough ship that it was going to try and block the wind. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So when the rescue took place. But as it turns out, the the I don't know whether something happened to. Was it on the ship or the sea king? But anyway, they they notified us that they weren't in any shape to make the rescue. And so it was the captain of the summit, London, and he launched a little rubber zodiac. And I don't know what size motor they had on the back of it, you know, nine point nine. But they made several trips back and forth from the summit, London, you know, to the life capsule taking three at a time. So walk us through that then. This little little dinghy bobbing through these huge waves. Yeah. Yeah. Well, as it turned out, we had a diabetic on there. Our cook was a diabetic. So in the capsule. Yes. And so anyway, he was you know, he'd lost left those medicine and everything, you know, on the on the rig. And so they were going to come with some fresh fruit for the diabetic and batteries, too, for the radios, because we we you know, we had radios that we were in contact with them. OK, so you were speaking to these people regularly? Yeah. Yeah. It's not only them, but, you know, we had one of the Aurora aircraft. Well, there a couple you know, the time we were in the capsule. The Araw aircraft were always around to you know, you could see they were they feathered two engines to their props. And so they were just cruising around on two motors. Just the you know, they could mean, you know, to save fuel. And they were always, always with us as well. And we had a whole year, a whole fleet of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were trying to help. Yeah. Yeah. And that made you feel very that sort of gave you a lot of comfort, too. Right. So what was just going to say? What was the morale like inside? I mean, it obviously it sucks getting seasick and everything, but at the same time, you've got radio contact. There's there's there's airplanes out there. There's ships out there. So what was it like inside? Well, it was I guess it was pretty tense, but we we did our best. And, you know, there was a little bit of singing some songs for a while and stuff like that. Telling some stories. Any any songs you any you remember the songs? Oh, what does one sing when we were getting seasick in a life capsule of the pubic hair? Man, I ain't got one wassan. I know that when my son was Johnson and Johnson or who is that? I'm not sure who's saying that one. I know there were some few. OK, you know, like we had two girls, and I think someone said, you know, made a joke to one of the girls that, you know, this could be our last chance. And she said, yeah, not today. I got a headache. You know, so everybody trying to sort of keep them around. Yes, that's right. Yeah. Keep the spirits up a little bit. Yes. Yeah. How am I how bad was the seizure? I mean, I'm assuming you were talking that was what did you say, three or four people that weren't seasick and everybody else's. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I'm not sure what the what smelt like after we'd all left it, but I'm sure it wasn't the nasty spot and lasting place, that capsule. I'm sure it was. I've spoken with one of the people that was in the in the capsule with you. And it being what are we out here now, 30 something years later, 34 years later? And I think he still has no sense of smell. Gone have gone forever. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was the toxin on your boat. OK, so OK. So there you are. You're on the boat and you've got a diabetic. Was was that getting to be a severe circumstance with the diabetic? I don't think it was severe, but I think the captain, the Smithland was using it to his advantage. You know, the seas had come down at this point in time, you know, how high they come down, where they probably somewhere between six and nine feet somewhere around there. OK, so still not nothing. Like not a nothing she St.Louis. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's still, you know, for a little rubber zodiac. Yeah. And so there were two guys in the Zodiac and I know one guy had like a dustpan. When you're sweeping the floor, he and a dustpan and he was continually building the rubber, the rubber raft, it leaked. So you're in a rescue boat when you're out of is leaking actually, or is taking on water from the high seas? Right. OK, I see Steve. But he was continually using using that to build the boat. So when you say that the captain of the in London was using the do you mean that he was sort of using the diabetic as an excuse to like let's get this rescue underway? Well, what he did is he said, OK, guys, I'm coming over. I've got some fresh fruit for the diabetic and some new batteries for your radio. But once we open those doors in your life capsule, if anybody jumps in, we can't stop them. So he made trips back and forth several times until he's gotten all 27 of us are totally dropped off all the fruit and batteries that he could. Yeah. And then we we all jumped in there two or three at a time. So let me ask this. Why? Why even use the excuse? I mean, why would they come anywhere? Was A it's still rough enough that there was concerns about it. Well, there was. That's right. And the Navy had said that they wanted they didn't want anybody to do anything until they got there. So, you know, they they I think they had a plan, but, you know, their plan didn't work out because, you know, you know their stories, you know, about the the sinking helicopters or, you know, their famous do. Right. OK, you know, so what we're seeking. Yeah. So so anyway, so that something happened there that they couldn't make it. And so it's then that the captain of the summit, London, decided to, you know, formulate his own plan, you know, to bring us fresh food, batteries, or to take us all back to, you know, the smell. I mean, OK. Right on. So. All right. So you getting picked up two and three at a time, transferred back over to London. And how are they getting you up on the spent money? They had a yes vote. You know, they had what we call the rope rope ladder hanging over the side. OK, yeah. Yeah. Like a scramble scramble that. Exactly. So we were we were climbing up on that. And I can say that when I put my leg over the handrail and got on the summit, London, you know, I was there was a hannagan thrashed in my hand right away. Well, you know, the Dutch Dutch, though, they had lots of Heineken on board. Fantastic. So, yeah. And I think, you know, I, I well, I wasn't drinking the beer. I was drinking water. I was so thirsty because, you know, after so many hours in the in the capsule, we we did break into the rations and passed around, you know, some, you know, the cans of water. So because we were all everybody was getting thirsty, you know. And as far as, you know, the food, there's that chocolate that they have in there. Listen, you that's that's some fancy. Like what? I've never seen the only rations I seen both of those little look like, you know, Kobby biscuit type things. It looks like a little old shortbread or something. No, they had some kind of a chocolate Covid biscuit around and they passed those around. I didn't try that, but they tried them. But I don't think that anybody was that hungry, that they wanted to make a meal of that stuff. No. Well, no, that's I think it's there for necessity as opposed to, you know. Yeah. Yeah. OK, so you're on the London the beer get stretched in your hands and everybody's hugging and everybody's. Yeah. Yeah, that was quite a day. Yeah. So how long were you actually in the in the capsule? In the lifeboat for 24 hours. Okay, 24 hours doesn't seem that long, but that's a long time to be strapped to a seat. Well, I tell you that, you know, I had my watch on and you'd be there in, you know, you'd be sick and feeling terrible. And it felt like I was you past you. Look at your watch. Wouldn't be minutes had passed, you know. So it was a it was a long ride in the capsule for sure. But it was I bet it was. But everybody survived. Is that. Yes. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's a good story. You know, had a good, good ending. So so you get on the line. I mean, did they try and tell the lifeboat and or they just let her know that? I'm not sure whether some of the one of the boats that were standing by. Did they try and get it? You know, because I'm sure those capsules are worse than, you know, a lot of money, you know, themselves. I would I would think they would bring that back and pass it to a university for study or something. Well, yeah, I'm not sure what happened to it, but I think one of the boats had tried to dig at it. But, you know, we just the split landing wasn't in any position really to try and, you know, grab the life capsule. So. So you get on the sprint line and then they that's it. You just sort of turn head for mainland and had report. Yeah. Yeah. We had a hell of Halifax straight back to Halifax. How long you think you get back to health? Jeez, I think that it was probably they maybe close to two days. You guys just probably sleeping. Oh, yeah, for sure. Rock. Sting in the eye. Yeah, know, get those, give me the pills. But we sleep. Wake me up when we get there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The laundry and because all the stuff you were in wasn't very strong, you know. So. All right. So you make it back safe and sound. Congratulations for that. Okay. I think. Wow. What an amazing story. So let me ask this then. What would you do different if we could go back? Let's say maybe we'll do this in a couple of phases. You're in Halifax and you're about to be wet told you're not sure if it's Trinidad or I think Port Yarmouth. You said a great year. A great year in the UK. Yeah. Anything you would do differently at that point? I'm looking back now. I don't think there was anything that know I could sort of do myself, you know, but I know the industry, the whole industry is changed. No, there's very few short toed Adobe be short. If they were in field, I think now all of our long toes will be done with a heavy lift vessel . OK, so not not doing the wet toes. You described it loaded on to a great big bird of some kind and great. Yeah. OK, so now let's fast forward to the weather picking up and you guys are fighting the fighting to keep the water out, although you said you were not feeling too much discomfort at that point . But anything you would do differently somewhere around that point? Yeah. No, I don't think I think that we were sort of doing well, you know, what was what was required? You know, we had some centrifugal walls going downstairs in the pump room to pump out the water there. And we also had, like I say, some submersible pumps that we were using downstairs. You know, yeah, I think we were doing, you know, what we could what was necessary at the time. From a personal preparation standpoint, did anything I mean, you worked in the industry for a long time before that and after it, you worked for many more years after that, which is which is fantastic. So obviously it didn't scare you so badly that, you know. No, no, no. That's right. So but and you've you've been in the industry long enough to see some of the changes, evolutions in the training. Some of the equipment has gotten a bit better here. There. And I'm just curious of any any particular things that when when Richard Powell looks at this, he goes, you know what, I'm glad this happened as a result of this or or I wish they would fix this part. Well, OK. One of the things is we would have to go out on deck the look the look in the clouds to see if we were taking on any water. Nowadays, they have with the technology, they have sensors in those preload tanks that will pick up any water that's coming in them. OK, so you don't have to physically go out on deck and be at race to be exposed. Yeah. Yeah. OK, so. No, no, that's right. You know, for our welder to get out there then and go down there inside the preload, look at things, you know. Yeah. I don't think you'd see that happen. You know, like that anymore. People are taking more precautions. I don't think people are as risky as they used to be either. You know, people are learning from all the prior mistakes everybody else has made. Well, hopefully, hopefully that's the purpose of the training programs and the the the evolution of the equipment and the safety regime that's in the offshore now. I mean, it's it's it's not unreasonable to say that. Let's say the early days of the 80s were a little bit Wild West ish in the offshore. Absolutely. They were. And sure. But now when you look at the statistics, you could compare. We often joke or I've heard the joke said that you could take, you know, a crew from an offshore platform right now if you could somehow teleport them to a space station circling the earth and pick them up a month later, that space station would be safer when they left than when they arrived. Right. Yeah. Yeah. OK, well, that's fantastic. That's a that's an incredible story. I want to thank Richard Powell for joining us here at Legacy Survival Stories. Anything else you want to add before we sign off? Yeah. No, no. I think that's you know, that's the short version of the story for sure. You know, like there are different things that happen. For instance, you know, when the auroras are flying overhead at night, you know, they asked us all. They said they have some cameras onboard with some very bright lights and they want to take some pictures of the capsule in the water. So they said, you know, close your eyes. They give us a warning, said, OK, close your eyes. We can take the pictures. And then they came over here. Even with my eyes closed, I could tell that these these guys had some bright lights on us. Really? Yeah. OK. I've never heard that part of the story before. Well, and the pictures I was wondering of survival system even had those pictures because I've never seen the pictures, you know, of us in the water from taken from there. Never seen. Never heard of. To my knowledge, it might be around somewhere, but that's the first I've heard of it. You know, I've never seen them either, so. Very interesting. Anything else you wanted to add? I'm champers. Not right now, I think. OK, well, that's just fine. Well, that's great. So thank you very much for joining us for this story. And I feel like there might be one or two more stories in the mental archives there, which we'd love to have you back some time and join us again. All right, great. I'd like that. I think then if you have a story to tell or know of someone who does, please contact us at legacy survival stories. All one word at Gmail dot com. You can also find us at legacy survival stories. Dot Buzz, Sproat dot com. And you go down, go down, go down. Legacy. Survival stories.