1,000 dives with no Lost Time Incidents
Scotland’s diving and subsea equipment experts Divex have announced that the Seven Atlantic dive support vessel has reached a major milestone in achieving 1,000 dives without lost time incident (LTI).
The vessel has been in operation for a year. It is owned and built by Subsea 7 and is fitted with a Divex designed and built saturation system.
UIE Underwater Services recorded the 1,000th dive in April 2011.
George Thomson of underwater vessel operations for Shell U.K. Ltd said, “The performance of the Seven Atlantic has proved to be fantastic after over one year of operation. The success of our joint ventures is wholly attributable to the professional approach of our personnel. Whilst we cannot be complacent about our activities, the terrific safety performance on both vessels is no accident.
“As we look forward to further demands in the coming years, I am confident that with the vessels and teams in place, we will continue to see ever more efficiencies and improvements in our combined activities.”
The Divex designed and built dive system includes ergonomically designed divers’ living space as well as SATCON, a computer based control system providing automation of life support equipment and the hyperbaric environment, including pressure control.
The development of the integrated control and monitoring system is based on established SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) as well as PLC (programmable logic controller) and HMI (human machine interface) systems. The overall control system is called SATCON.
The dive system, which meets NORSOK standards, has been paramount during the design and build process. Divex worked closely with Subsea 7 to ensure that the system has been integrated successfully, which at times has been extremely challenging.
Safety, diver comfort, quality and traceability are all benchmarks for this and similar Divex systems that will be in operation during the next phase of saturation diving history. The key features of the diving system onboard the vessel are the chamber layout, enhanced diver living standards, dual hyperbaric life boats, bell configuration, bell location, triplicate power supply, bell launch and recovery system (LARS), control rooms and offices, and the advanced gas management systems.
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