Charlton Somerville Consult

Tele - Draft Engineering

Tele - Design Drafting

CLIENT  LIST

Northern Offshore Federation

Last modified: November 11, 2006

© Copyright 1999-2006

1982     HATCHCOVER  SERVICES  LIMITED

Blyth,        Northumberland,         United kingdom

This project was part of a NATO exercise to convert a container vessel in the shortest possible time into a front line combat helicopter support vessel.

I handled the design and detail of the conversion of one of the vessels holds into a Heli Supply Store, with an elevator capable of handling the helicopter blade length.

The elevator replaced the centre containers with access decks at each level to access the adapted store containers on either side to deliver spare parts to the Heli-Landing & Service Area which was erected the adjacent hatch covers.

Other Relevant Experience

Originally from a shipbuilding background, I have considerable and varied experience in Marine & Offshore Design and possess a disciplined approach including the motivation to work without supervision or as a member of a project team dedicated to the ultimate goal.

I served a Naval Architectural Design Drawing Office apprenticeship at Swan Hunter Shipbuilders on the Tyne during the days of the Super Tankers in the Sixties and early Seventies, which included over two years school and shop floor experience with external studies up to HNC level.

During 1982 I was involved in a NATO project to convert a standard container vessel into a Combat Helicopter Support Vessel. Using the next hatch cover as a Heli-Pad, an elevator with intermediate decks replaced the central containers. With entry through the elevator machinery house on the hatch over, the side containers were converted into repair workshops & stores for heli maintenance.

Working alone this involved close liaison with OTIS the elevator supplier during the design of the lifting machinery foundations in the deck house and guide supports down through the intermediate decks to the tank top while trying to attain the approval of Lloyds Register.

In 1983, ITM presented a concept to modify the crane jib & hook sheave arrangement on their crane barge MARINER, the present layout with the sheaves 5m apart handled badly on the wind and proposed to build a new hook yoke for a 2m wide fall.

Utilising the original sheaves, I prepared the fabrication and installation drawings of a replacement sheave block to be installed in the existing jib, along with a new hook yoke for approval by Lloyds.

Although the boom was rated at 400 t installed on the barge the maximum rating was 200 t and required the inclusion of a load cell modified boom and final load testing.

Matatec Hatchcovers engaged me during 1988 to manage the design, detail, fabrication and supervision of sub-contractors on a ferry modification project, to install a tween deck vehicle hatch/ramp. The ramp was capable of transferring articulated lorries and cars up to the exterior vehicle deck, which when raised with the last two lorries formed a flush watertight Upper deck.

With initially a Structural Engineer followed by two detail designers I prepared the concept, design & fabrication drawings and supervised the structural fabrication and mechanical sub contractors to Bureau Veritas acceptance requirements through out the project.

This included the ramp building and manufacture of a hydraulic jigger winch with a 2m stroke x 400 mm bore installed in the ramp, which through a sheave arrangement raised the ramp with hydraulically activated locking pins which held the ramp into the deck structure.

In 1992 Pearson Reelotech offered me the opportunity to manage the design, detailing, fabrication and initial testing of the prototype of a retractable stairway to aid the rapid evacuation of personnel from offshore installations down to sea level into liferafts or rescue craft.

This was a very interesting project to handle, having already done preliminary development on the same concept in 1983 at Seaforth Maritime prior to the Cullen Report on the Piper Alpha disaster. It involved the design, detailing, fabrication with intermediate & final testing to gain the approval of Lloyds, with a electro-mechanical lifting arrangement on a separate enclosure located on top of the assembly storage deck house.

The stairway having been winched up into the deck house was released when the alarm was raised or the entry door latch was activated allowing access down the staircase, after final testing the prototype was installed on a Conoco platform for offshore evaluation.

In 1994 having entered the world of CAD the previous year, when during a quiet work period I bought my first computer paid for one on one tuition at Loughborough University, I visited SubSea Offshore in Aberdeen for my first complete project with AutoCAD .

I was involved along with a dedicated Engineer to complete the structural design and detail of various pieces of heavy handling equipment to install and control the access riser/conductors onto the top of the tether caps, which were located on the casing below the sea level. This allowed access down through the tether of inspection and x-ray equipment for periodical inspections on the ‘Heidrun’ tension leg platform.

At Kvaerner Oil & Gas in 1998 using Microstation "SE" to NORSOK standards with Kvaerner's KOGAS system, I prepared the structural fabrication drawings on an experimental process plant to extract the CO2 from exhaust emissions of Industrial & Offshore turbine generation plants.

My scope of work involved liasing with the client on design finalisation, along with re-routing piping systems to suit and the solving of un-foreseen problems in an already tight production schedule, incurred long hours to ensure completion for sea load out, to the Statoil's test facility.

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