courtesy Noreq

North Sea offshore unions might soon get their wish of better emergency escape boats, if StatoilHydro and perhaps others endorse a new “torpedo boat” concept being worked up in Norway.

Rescue boat supplier Noreq hopes union members present for jettison tests of the new lifeboat designs will take the message to super employer StatoilHydro.

In single dives into churned up nine-metre waves from simulated platform heights the new torpedo life boats drove into the water and re-emerged, on average, a safe 100 m away.

“It’s that that no lifeboat on the market can do,” newspaper Dagens Næringsliv quoted inventor Magnar Reigstad as saying.

Reigstad has been testing the new boat at the targeted Marinetek research labs of research pillar SINTEF in Trondheim.

The paper wrote Thursday that StatoilHydro has already paid for the tank tests, but the company is asking for up to 40-times the funding hand-out for further tests.

StatoilHydro has had to shut down platforms during storms because existing lifeboats have been known to founder in 7 metre waves, a common site in the North Sea winter. Some lifeboats which have been in service partially disintegrated on being launched from real platform heights of up to 50 metres, while the motors of others failed to start.

In an article last October in _Scandinavian Oil-Gas Magazine, U.K. and Norwegian union leaders said lifeboat safety was of paramount concern. Their lobbying compelled safety regulators in at least Norway to ask oil companies to strengthen plans for the jettisoning of packed lifeboats in storm situations.

Tags: Noreq