UK — Derek Moore has spent the past 20 years diving in treacherous conditions in the North Sea. Yet it isn't the rough weather, freezing temperatures or the eight-hour dives carrying out installation and maintenance work on oil rigs, that are the most gruelling aspects – it's the experience of living in the infamous saturation chamber for a month at a time. These chambers, situated on support vessels, are the size of a small room, housing six men and allowing them to live under pressure so they are able to undertake multiple dives, at greater depths, over longer periods, with one decompression period of up to six days at the end of a 20-day period. It means more work can be done more economically, and safely. The chambers, says Moore, are about 4.5m long by 2m wide, with bunk beds, a toilet and shower and a communal table squeezed into the space. Meals, cooked on the vessel, are provided through a special compartment and inmates are cut off from the outside world, with no phones and only a porthole to look through. The main form of entertainment is a 12in television. Moore, 50, from Southport on Merseyside, says it takes a very special person to live in these conditions. "It's not everyone's cup of tea," he says. "Some guys can deal with it, others can't. It depends on your psychological make-up. You need a good sense of humour and you need to be a bit of an extrovert and get on with your team members. "You've actually got less space than the minimum requirement that Amnesty International lays down for prisoners. Their rule is two-and-half-cubic metres per man and ours is less than that. We had a chap working with us recently from Canada and once he was locked in (to the saturation chamber) he couldn't handle it and had to come out." North Sea diving is safer than it was in what Moore describes as the "Klondyke" years of the early oil industry, in the sixties and seventies, when things were fairly unregulated. Yet Moore, whose work involves highly prized welding and metallurgy testing skills, says diving still carries huge risks. Thirty years ago the main attraction was money, but the rewards have now fallen behind those of other offshore workers. It is this disparity that recently brought 900 divers into a pay dispute with employers, one of the most serious in the industry's history. After rejecting a 37% pay rise over three years, the divers went on strike on November 1, demanding a 50% rise to bring them up to the level of other offshore workers who have reaped the benefits over the past two decades of soaring profits in the oil and gas industry. Most divers work on a freelance basis and experienced divers can earn up to £46,000 a year. However, they have to pay for their safety certification and training, which can cost up to £20,000. After more talks this week between the employer groups and the divers union, the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) union, a new offer of a 44.7% rise over two years has been hammered out and will be put to members in a referendum this Friday. Stan Herschel, who has been leading negotiations for the RMT, told reporters: "My members work in appalling conditions and take tremendous risks and I believe the offer on the table now reflects their true value. Obviously, we'll be seeking further improvements as time goes on but at last we have addressed the situation to a degree of satisfaction. I hope my members will accept that. I sincerely hope we see an end to the strike on Friday." Moore, who is also a regional organiser for the RMT, hopes the members will accept the new offer because he believes it's the best deal divers can get for the time being. He says at least the strike has made employers (there are seven main diving contractors working in the UK) realise the worth of divers. "In the past, some employers considered us to be oil-field trash. But we've managed to get the message across that we're experienced and skilled workers," he says. But some of the danger elements of the job and general working conditions still need to be addressed, adds Moore. "The danger lies in the fact you're working in an alien environment, diving sometimes down to 600ft. If anything goes wrong, you can't just take your hat off and breathe water. "You're attached by an umbilical cord. Your umbilical could be squashed by a piece of equipment, or it could burst. You're reliant on mechanical means for support to keep you alive. We haven't had a death since 1999 but there are still injuries occurring because of failures in safety procedures." | | It's dark. It's cold. It's 600ft down in the North Sea. It's possibly the most dangerous working conditions on the planet. So why do deep sea divers do it? Moore says he's lucky never to have been involved in a serious incident himself, apart from when the hot water supply to his suit malfunctioned and he had to return to the bell. This incident could have resulted in death had he not been able to return to the bell, because the water temperature in the North Sea is 5°C. One experienced operator who has been watching the pay dispute is retired ex-North Sea diver Jim Limbrick. Two years ago, Limbrick, 70, wrote a book, North Sea Divers: A Requiem (Authors Online), profiling the lives of 58 divers who perished between 1970 and 2000. Born in Kent, he spent 26 years as a diver, first in the Royal Navy, later in the Middle East on private contracts, then four years in the North Sea in the late sixties and early seventies. "The money then was the attraction of the job. The industry was up and coming and offshore diving was a real adventure for me." Limbrick believes North Sea divers deserve a substantial pay rise but have less cause to complain about conditions, saying they're probably as good as they can be, given all the limitations, and better than they were in those maverick years when he was diving. "In those days, you had what you called 'tool pushers', guys who directed the drilling on rigs who pushed divers into the water in adverse conditions," he says. "Many were killed. Back then, companies took shortcuts with safety and equipment. I quit the North Sea because of that. I was sent down once in more than 150ft of water with a camera to take a photo (of part of the rig). I was just in scuba gear, which is now banned in the North Sea, with no line attached to the surface. I came up with absolutely no decompression whatsoever. It wasn't offered to me. My life was in my own hands so I made sure I didn't come up too fast." Limbrick knows only too well what happens with lack of decompression, having suffered once from "the bends" on a dive in the English Channel. The bends, or decompression sickness, is caused by ascending too quickly, when a diver moves from a high-pressure environment into one of low pressure. Bubbles form in the bloodstream as gases in pressurised form revert to their normal state, like lemonade fizzing out a shaken bottle. Limbrick suffered a temporary paralysis and was saved only by prompt medical treatment, but the condition could have been fatal. Although conditions are better now than in the sixties and seventies, one thing that never changes is the difficulty dealing with the isolation of the saturation chamber and also the disruption the job causes to family life. Moore, who is married with three children, says: "Sometimes you get a couple of days' notice for a job, sometimes they might ring you at four in the morning and ask you to be there the next day. You can be planning something special with your family and then you'll have to drop everything. And I miss my family when I'm away." He also says men can never take their family or personal problems to work. "We don't talk about these things in the saturation chamber. It's too difficult. We prefer just to tell dirty jokes," he says. Moore is at an age when most divers retire, and although the oldest diver in the North Sea is 61, he says he might have a few years left in him for diving, but not much more energy for union negotiation. He says he's now physically and mentally exhausted and, like everyone, else hopes the dispute will be resolved on Friday. Negotiating a pay deal, he says, with a tired sigh in his voice, has been a lot harder than most of the dives he's undertaken lately. |
