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Left, Sonar imagery of the sunken wreck, the oil rig
S.S. Montebello, torpedoed 2 weeks after Pearl harbor by a Japanese sub off the
Right, Global Diving & Salvage lowers its unmanned ROV, a "robotic
sub", into the sea to collect data on the wreck it then transmits to an
office on the ship.
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Unlike some homeowners, when West Seattle-based
Global Diving & Salvage is underwater, that means business is good. With
300 employees the company casts a wide net with locations in Richmond
and Rio Vista, Ca., Houston , Tx., Anchorage , Ak., and 3840 West Marginal Way New York
State to the Gulf of Mexico to Honolulu
"We're fortunate to be insulated from the
(struggling) economy in that we do a lot of infrastructure work,"
explained Global Diving Marketing Manager Frank Immel. "You can put off
maintenance, but only for so long."
Employees belong to the Carpenters Union. Their West Seattle facilities include their core office,
warehouse, fabrication facility, storage yard, and environmental division.
Global sent a team to the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill in the Gulf with response gear. They were also part of the ASARCO Smelter
remediation project in Tacoma last year,and dug
contaminated dirt out of yards, put in clean dirt, and are doing a similar
project now in Saipan .
Immel completed the Highline Community College
"Our guys can do pretty much anything under
water that can be done on the surface," he said with pride. "I like
to think our guys wear a different hard hat and different coveralls to work.
But they are still construction workers. We pour concrete, install rebar, build
forms, do demolition. We put people in very inhospitable environments every
day. We're not 'supposed to be there'. But we can go there because of
technology, and because we know what to do. We are experts at deep water
diving, and saturation diving is our niche."
"Underwater, you can't always see," he
emphasized. "The water can be turbid. In the Cook
Inlet you can't see your hand in front of your face because of all
the silt, sand, fine particles. It's black water. A dam we are building on the
Ohio River in Illinois
Owned by lifelong West Seattle residents Tim Beaver
and John Graham, Global Diving garnered national attention in October by making
waves six and a half miles off the coast of Cambria, California, about half way
between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and 900 feet below the surface of the
Pacific to explore the S.S. Montebello. The large oil tanker sank after it was
hit by a Japanese submarine torpedo December 23, 1941, 16 days after the attack
on Pearl Harbor . The vessel broke apart
landing upright with her bow separated from the majority of the wreckage. Those
on board abandoned ship and nobody died.
Global Diving's mission, under the eye of the
United States Coast Guard, was to safely penetrate the skin of the vessel to
find oil, if any remained, to prevent a leak into the ocean. To date, no signs
of leakage were detected.
The complex, high-tech $2.3 million operation
utilized Global’s Cougar XT ROV- Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle, an
unmanned submarine with robotic arms, performed 3D modeling of the wreck, and
utilized a neutron backscatter tool, a non-invasive sensing device, something
like an x-ray, which helped determine the presence of oil without puncturing
the vessel.
No oil was found and so the vessel imposes no pollution threat to
the California Coast
While the company has its own fleet, the
specially-equipped ship on the surface is termed a "vessel of
opportunity" as Global Diving subcontracted it for the operation.
Global Diving's Eric Crumpton was on the ship used
to stage the ROV and project. He helped control the ROV and collect data from
his office, a modified shipping container, equipped with multiple computer
screens and a control box with a joystick and switches, staged on the ship.
"The ROV can go down to 3,000 feet, has four
cameras, six thrusters, and two-five-function manipulator (robotic) arms to
hold tools," said Crumpton. " It has underwater LED lighting, color
and black & white zoom cameras, and additional tool packages that bolt to
the bottom of the ROV. We receive the data it collects from our office. There's
a lot hanging on the other end of the umbilical."
He refers to the expensive technology used in the
office above the surface. While the ROV explores the wreck, the ship above
stays on position via GPS and remains above.
"It was exciting," said Crumpton. "
We're a part of history. exploring one of the first ships torpedoed by Japanese
sub off the West Coast."
Source: West Seattle Herald. By Steve Shay. 5 November 2011
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