Toured this craft when it was being built at Amfels in Brownsville. Before the main dome was applied. The project director was a friend, so he took a few hours (It's a big ship) to show us around. It was the biggest semi-submersible available, from whichever Scandinavian country they got it from. It was specc'ed to have 8 generators, but someone cut back, and they ended up with one less, so he ended up with 6 of the biggest cats available, plus one for ship's power. The others ran submarine electric motors in each corner stack, which could be lowered or raised (for when they were being towed in and out of port) Each was steerable, and very powerful.
The designed the ship to use each hollow leg and struts as fuel tanks. It had a ships crew, and a radar crew plus cooking staff, and a ship's medic.
When it was pulled out by tugs from Amfels, into the ship channel past South Padre Island, it got stuck at that last corner (opposite the turning basin, at the start of the last straightaway. the tugs had cut the corner, and dragged the leading stack, and pontoon onto the sand bar, just at the edge of the big fishing and swimming pond on the south side of the channel.
they pulled and pulled, (the platform hd pilot's instructions to NOT put down a motor, in order to avoid running aground. After a couple of hours, the Captain lowered one motor, hit the power, which about drained the channel. It was amazing to see. Suddenly the water swirled near the far corner, and pulled that platform off.
They continued down the channel and out into the Gulf, for sea trials.
It was supposed to be stationed in the western Pacific, using dynamic positioning, however that big dome acted a a huge sail, and resulted in some positioning problems. I think they towed it back to Hawaii, until they could station it in the Aleutians.
An amazing ship.
When we toured it, it was completely up on it's pontoons. Seemed like it was a mile high when we rose up on the rickety consttuction elevator that was attached to the side. BTW, looking at the photo again, the main dome appears to have a much more stramlined profile than the original.
Thanks for posting. I will dig out my photos of this tour, and post them later.
