One of the fascinating things about offshore engineering is not about how things work, but rather, how they are designed to. What you see here in this photograph is a typical launch sequence (also see step 3 in the sketch below) of a jacket structure¹.

At 15° or less to the horizontal plane, the steel jacket is launched into the ocean. The structure dives in and by virtue of its buoyant design, re-surfaces. The upending sequence is then commenced by controlled flooding of legs and buoyancy tanks (if used) together with crane barge to upright the structure and rest it on seabed.

1. Jackets are framed structures designed to take facility loads and environmental loads. [←]

Related posts

Following list is auto-generated, based on this post's context as possibly related. You may, however, occasionally find some in this list unrelated, but nevertheless, we sincerely hope that you'll enjoy them too.

• The Ocean
• Onbottom stability
• Looking back at 2005, Part 2
• Lifting vessels and barges
• Tow (or transportation)