Gary's Baby has a Baby

Gary sent me this photo the other day of a miniature of 'his' GBS. Since I am a miniature house nut - I decided we needed one of these for our living room (he said 'no'). What a cool job - building offshore oil structures in miniature:

Just talked to Gary -

#1) This is not a toy (yeah, right)

#2) It cost about 1000 times more to build than a minature house (just an EXPENSIVE toy)

Added for clarification: Gary discussed the exactness of the models replica and I decided that:

#3) I would not have the patience (true) ...

It was worth a shot....

Gary's Baby is Home ...

Gary's baby started swimming in Spain (at START) and ended at its' final spot off the coast of Italy (at END). For the fab photos and Gary's explanation click HERE. For towing photos and a lovely discourse on Archimedes Principle click HERE and HERE.

Here is his baby, at its' final spot and - as promised showing the installation of one of the Mooring Dolphins (the dolphin is behind the two red cranes):

Since I was a bit confused with all the ships and stuff around, Gary supplied me with a diagram of what it will look like when it is done. As explained in one of the previous blogs about Gary's baby, ships loaded with cooled Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) will pull up beside this and off load it. It is then heated and shipped to Italy via a pipeline on the ocean floor. The ships are so big they are almost the length of both Mooring Dolphins and the GBS structure itself - which is pretty darn big since the GBS structure is approximately the size of 4 football fields, so the length of two football fields. The ships tie off to the dolphins on each end and settle on the bumpers on the side of the GBS (they are blue in the diagram and yellow on the actual structure).

Here are a couple of more photos of the work in progress:

Gary's Baby Dolphins

Nah, not that kind of 'dolphin' ....

THIS kind of dolphin: (OK, and the title should read: 'Garys Babys Dolphins'...)

Don't ask me, I have no clue about any of this. When Gary sent me the photos yesterday labeled: "Mooring Dolphin Progress and Photos", I was all "Cool - that is nice - what a lovely photo of Venice in the background ... would like to go there someday". Then promptly forgot them.

Today he sent me photos of his baby in place off the shore of Venice with one of the 'dolphins' installed. I said that I was going to use one of the photos of the dolphins being towed out since I liked the photo of Venice in the background even though it was not a structure he designed. This seemed to upset him, since apparently it is a structure he designed and asked: "Why do you think I had all those trips to Venice?" I shot back that we had lived in Norway for like two whole years and I was still a bit fuzzy on why we lived there, what's a few trips to Venice in the big scheme of things?

So - apparently I have no idea what my husband does at work - I do know the important things - like if he drops dead at work I get a boatload of money - important things like that, but I will need to take a refresher course on 'What my husband does for a living' before posting the rest of the photos - his baby is in place 17 kms out of Venice with a cute (baby) dolphin (get it?) installed beside it. The other one was installed today but I don't have photos.

Here are the lovely photos of his structure complete with interesting background (they look really good when you click on them to make them bigger). This way you can pretend to admire his structure and really just be scoping out Venice (just kidding Gary, really).

Note:

I was quite suprised that Wikipedia came through for me yet again: "A dolphin is a man-made marine structure that extends above the water level and is not connected to shore."

Better Photos of Gary's Baby Swimmin'

I thought I would add a few photos we got today of Gary's baby leaving Algeciras, Spain (with the Rock of Gibralter in the background) on its' final destination in Venice, Italy. Watching the video - it looked like quite a production.

If you click on the photo (especially the second and third) you get a good view of the entire structure.

Gary still has a job...

Here is Gary's baby off for its final swim to Venice, Italy from Spain.

Yes, it is exactly is what it looks like: a floating chunk of concrete (with 20,000 tons of processing equipment on top of it). Most my family has mentioned that 'gee - it's ... concrete ... and I am pretty sure that stuff sinks in water ...' - so pretty much Gary is magic (or has a masters in Structural Engineering and damn smart if I say so myself ... and a wee bit magic). Why does it float? - cause it's full of steel silly! Ok, hollow steel somethings or others that hold the pressurised liquid natural gas. Whenever this subject rears its' head, Gary just sighs and say "Archimedes Principle still works" assuming that the rest of us just thought that all laws of Physics went down the toilet when it comes to Gary's work. (By the By in Wikipedia: Archimedes Principle says: blah, blah, blah .... The net upward buoyancy force is equal to the magnitude of the weight of fluid displaced by the body. And then a bunch of blah, blah, blah, but you get the gist, I'm sure....).

Oh, the title: I always ask him what would happen if something he designed sunk .....

Gary's baby is going for a swim!!

When Gary sent out some photos of his ‘baby’, his sister wrote back:

“Explain more about this- I would love to share with my classes in a month when school starts. This big rectangular cement-looking box does what, exactly? Did you like to play with erector sets when you were little?”

Gary’s explanation:

“Think of it as a big offshore propane tank.

Natural Gas is liquified (cooled to -160 deg C) to become LNG (liquefied Natural Gas) in Qatar and placed in LNG tankers. Tankers move up the Suez canal into the Mediterranean Sea and up to Venice (17 KM offshore Venice) The tankers berth along side the GBS ( gravity based structure - my baby) and the LNG is pumped into storage tanks that are inside the GBS (two tanks that each hold 125000 cubic meters of LNG).

The top of the concrete box has about 20,000 tons of processing equipment and pressurizes and warms up the LNG to become high pressure natural gas. The GBS is connected to the mainland by a pipeline which connects to the Natural Gas piping network in Italy.

I was responsible for the design of the concrete box, and the metal tanks inside the box that hold the LNG.

I did have an erector set, but I was more of a lego guy.”

Some Photos:

Here is his baby before the dry dock was filled with water (you can see how big it really is)

Close up

With the Rock of Gibralter in the background, and a better view of scale with cars in the photo (click on it for a bigger view)