I can’t go into politics but about 2013-14 somebody I believe now is carrying a Russian dictionary tried to claim everything “Precious” style which never worked. That I experienced was the start of our proper demise in the North Sea though the plans then were ditched when they saw every contractor start pulling out almost overnight. Secondly, rather than our country support an industry it’s let it conveniently dwindle away, forgetting the fact they were potentially wrong trying to claim “precious” before a certain nationally important vote which (thankfully) didn’t go their way.
...We spent 10’s of M servicing my last DSV a few years ago. I’ve been keeping watch and she’s apparently sitting in the knackers yard in Malta now. I always said at last re-fit the expenditure was crazy but to be honest she was one old boat, but seaworthiness and diving reputation almost second to none!!!
I converted a newbuild before, brand new ship from the yard to a pipelayer. I saw she’s been laid-up for a good while now on AIS. About a year back I heard she’s such a good boat she would be scrapped rather than sold to a competitor. That breaks my heart as 10 months on the job and 6 at least in Finland in winter (-30oC and the rest) in 2009/2010 makes allot of work we did seem not worthwhile.
As for me, I am in the 15-20 years’ experience 0ffshore bracket. Everyone else I know the same is forced out of it. We know how to do it all but apparently too expensive to hire without asking. Graduates to 5 years experience apparently reign now for jobs. We ALL know the unofficial black-list for any other job existed way before it was exposed on national media and trust me work has been hard. I never rested on my laurels from day one but while I was applying for every other engineering job on the sun, nobody will employ someone educated to at least sweep floors, labouring, industrial cleaning, basic admin to at least pay some form of bills. DWP screwed me when I reluctantly needed them and HMRC screwed me since for no reason. I said since I would probably rather jump off the Kessock suspension bridge then have to deal DWP if I was out of work again. I have paid every penny of tax since year dot (no offshore tax dodges for me) and I have been hammered by HMRC / DWP sice.
As for boats laid up –it’s a changing industry. Decommissioning is the big thing, but the foreign contractors have had it sown up for years. I did 18 months of it on our boat, lots of jobs going with contractors but I don’t speak Dutch or Germanic. Says allot. Our Government doesn't support a decommissioning industry much -why would they when the europeans have it already sown up!
It's a sad state of affairs. Supposed to be up to 150,000 workers in the UK affected up to now. Nobody in "higher" levels has done much.
You can no doubt tell I am somewahat bitter about the experience!! We have to develop and change but I feel myself and my peers have been thrown out on the scrap heap unceremonianally, this suits the government figures somewhat so the extent of the issue is masked.
For myself I am working as a mech eng in a very small company which I am eternally grateful for (quite insulting for a Nav Architect to be called a mech. engineer but no bother). HSE is non-existant. It breaks may heart every morning and is a real struggle to get up at all though, I unblocked a sewage pumping station today -I will never eat in one of two popular chains (never did but vever will judjing by today).