A how stuff works spring/summer cruise out to Oil/Gas rigs and Wind Farms, the stuff that makes cheap energy and every day life possible is cool, and under appreciated imo. Are you guys listed on VRBO/Expedia for the cabins you don’t fill? Semi serious… 
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As someone who has taken residence on a jack-up more than once before…it loses it’s luster real quick lol
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No we aren’t. I’m pretty sure our insurance company would 
a brick for that lol. The amount of training and stuff we have to have just to be on board is in the thousands of dollars. Not really worth it just to check it out lol. But if you get you a job they will put you though all the school then you can see it and get paid lol
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Is there an age limit? 
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My engineer is almost 60 and I have worked with many over the years that were pushing 70 so I would say no lol
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That looks really cold. Snow while on the water…nope.
lol it snowed again today. At least we didn’t have 30+ mph winds today as well lol. I stayed in the wheel house all day working on paperwork getting ready for an audit next week. Crane mechanics didn’t have it as good lol
Do you have to know anything about engines or can I just hang out in my room and code in vim all day?
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When you start out here the only thing you need to know is how to sweep mop and scrub a toilet. After that everything is OJT lol
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Wouldn’t it be better to improve your aim?
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No, rough water wont let you aim. lmao, but true. Maybe they always sit down to go pee 
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lol that’s the best last of a lift boat. We can’t travel in anything over 4’ seas on this boat
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Realized its been a while since I have added anything here. Just a few random pics from the last few years…
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that is just insane! glad it is you and not me, bahahahahha! My dad wanted me to join the navy like him, I told him, you know I do not do WATER!
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So what happens when the pads stick in the ocean floor??? You just wait until they release?
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That’s what I am doing in this photo here, pulling on the pads. I can lean the boat side to side while pulling the hull down to (or under) the water to get the max buoyancy to pull on them. We usually ride with about 4-5’ of freeboard (hull above the water) so when you pull that much more down it adds a lot of pull against the pads. Sometimes it takes a while. This boat is usually not too bad. 1-2 hrs average. But I have been on some where 5 days later they were bringing out a dive boat to jet us out. Some areas are better than others as well. Bottom type has a lot to do with it. I think in this particular pic at that location we only had about 10’ of penetration. Sometimes we can get 20-30’ or more.
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That machine blows my mind.
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For being 95’ wide, 145’ long and weighs around 2100LT (4.7 million pounds) and we park it within feet of things all the time without any kind of Dynamic Positioning in all kinds of different winds/seas/currents. I will say that having brakes (Legs/pads) helps a ton 
but still takes a fair amount of skill as well.
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And here I though managing a 65 foot, 2-story housboat in bad weather at Lake Powell was a white knuckle experience.
My hat’s off to anyone that can operate a vessel like that offshore. WOW!
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I would probably be just as white knuckled as you in the same situation. Horsepower and placement of said horsepower makes a BIG difference.
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