Drillship Seacrest
| History | |
|---|---|
 United States
|
|
| Name: | DS Seacrest |
| Owner: | Unocal Corporation |
| Operator: | Seacrest Drilling Co., Great Eastern Drilling & Services Inc., Singapore |
| Port of registry: |
 Panama
|
| Builder: | Far East-Levingston Shipbuilding Ltd., Singapore |
| Completed: | 1977 |
| Identification: |
|
| Fate: | Sunk, November 3 1989 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | TD-E Drilling Ship |
| Tonnage: | 4,400 ton |
| Length: | 362 ft (110 m) |
| Beam: | 70 ft (21 m) |
| Depth: | 24 ft (7.3 m) |
| Installed power: | 6,625 bhp (4,873 kW) |
DS Seacrest, also known as The Scan Queen, is a drill ship built by Far East Levingston Shipbuilding Ltd., Singapore, owned by Unocal Corporation and operated by Great Eastern Drilling and Engineering company. It was sunk by Typhoon Gay in the Gulf of Thailand on November 3, 1989. 91 rig workers were killed after the vessel capsized, resulting in a massive legal case brought against the ship's owners UNOCAL. There were only six reported survivors; one Indonesia diver and five Thai rig crew, although these figures vary slightly depending on the source. Many of the bodies were never recovered. Typhoon Gay produced winds of 100 knots or more with 40 feet waves. It left hundreds of sunken fishing vessels in its wake, killing 529 people and leaving approximately 160,000 homeless.
DS Seacrest had been operating in the Gulf of Thailand since 1981, for the purpose of drilling gas wells for UNOCAL. At the time of the incident, the Seacrest had been anchored at the Platong Gas Field. When drilling, the ship was moored over the well site by eight anchors distributed around the ship. Each anchor weighed 30,000 pounds and was connected to the ship by wire rope cables 2 inches in diameter and 7,000 feet in total length. All of the anchor cables on Seacrest were replaced with new cables during the summer of 1989, shortly before the storm. The ship heading as indicated on the last rig move report was 90°, east.
On November 3, 1989, the 5-inch drill pipe had reached a depth of 3,707 feet. The rig had been in the tropical storm since the Tuesday 31 October electric logging was performed. The superintendent ignored all warnings of the storm saying "There hasn't been a typhoon for 50 years in the Gulf of Thailand, so keep working". There was 12500 ft of drill-pipe in the derrick and the rig was out of survey since the top-drve had been installed. What follows id all wrong. The drill-ship was lost due to criminal negilgence. The superintendent's report stated that winds and seas increased at approximately 0100 hours on the day of the capsize. The increasing severity of the weather forced the rig workers to hang the drill pipe in the hole on the lower rams. It was determined from the morning report that drilling activities ceased around midnight. By 0300 the drill pipe in the hole was hanging on the lower rams. The rig workers, however, did not have time to lay down the 90 foot lengths of drill pipe that remained in the derrick.
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