Checking in

Aloha spearos! Coming to you live from just about the geographic middle of the Gulf of Mexico.

Anyway, I'm new to the site (though an old salt) and just wanted to say hey. When I'm home, which is pretty rare these days, I live and play in S FL.

T

Quote from Hookinfish

Welcome. Sounds like your working on a rig in the gulf.

Actually, I'm currently out here satellite tagging sperm whales but I did a brief stint in the GOMEX oil patch during another life.

T

Quote from LunkerBuster

Whoa!? Cool. Please tell us more about the whales if you can. Sounds awesome

Just back on the ship from another brutal day on the rhib. It is seriously hot out here without a hint of a breeze all day. One of those days that is so glassy, hot and humid that it becomes difficult at times to distinguish the horizon, as sea and sky blur together. Anyway, I'll try to get a few pics posted later today or tomorrow.

T

Quote from Dan

Sounds like you had a lot of interesting experiences Deep 6, welcome to the forum.

Thanks Dan. Great site you have here.

Only a few days left out here then finally home for a while after two months at sea! Here's a quick pic before we launch again. It's been so hot, we've been coming to the ship for an occasional break and to refill the cooler with water/snacks.

My daily commuter to and from "the office" for the past 2 months...

Quote from Dan

Interesting boat. What is the purpose of this design?

All aluminum construction with a foam filled sponson make this is an extremely rugged RHIB. In addition to our shore-based projects, we also take it with us on research ships where it is launched and recovered via crane. Although we prefer to work in good conditions, at times it gets downright snotty and we may still have to go out or even if we launched in good wx, things may change for the worse. The boat has to be strong enough to handle being beat against a steel hull for these operations. As with all RIBs, it is very stable off plane but can get up and run in a big sea as hard as your body can handle. It's a tank.

Here it is shown with the bow pulpit installed. That allows us to get out over the top of a 35-50' whale in order to deploy a tag.

It's built by an outfit in Alabama called Silver Ships. If you've got the coin, they can be bought but we're talking six figures. They build to suit though, so you can get almost as wild as your checkbook allows. I do quite a bit of work in the Bearing Sea also but ironically use a much lighter RIB there, however it's CDI factor is no where near as high!