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The 1991 Visit of the Sedco Joides Resolution Sedco_BP461 to Victoria BC
John M. MacFarlane 2011
The drill ship SEDCO FOREX BP471 (Photo from the John MacFarlane collection.)
The stern of the drill ship. (Photo from the John MacFarlane collection.)
In July 1991 the Schlumberger research vessel Sedco_BP461 was the base for the Joides Resolution Ocean Drilling Program. She called at Victoria BC and sat at the Outer Wharf.
Name Board on the Sedco_BP461 (Photo from the John MacFarlane collection.)
The expedition logo. (Photo from the John MacFarlane collection.)
A 14 year program utilizing the Sedco BP471 drilling into the earth’s crust 8,000 feet in waters as deep as 15,000 feet was carried out. The major thrust was to gain scientific knowledge of the earth’s crust and ocean floor. Since 1985, operations have been carried out worldwide in water depths ranging from 40 to 6000 m. From time to time, the operations of the program come into conflict with other uses of the seafloor.
Detail of the Sedco Forex BP471 (Photo from the John MacFarlane collection.)
Drill sites identified on the basis of underway geophysical surveys have been found to coincide with the locations of munitions dump sites, low–level radioactive waste disposal sites and submarine telephone cables. The drill sites are moved in order to avoid disturbing pre–existing artifacts on the seafloor, or operations are modified to minimize the chance that undesirable material might be recovered to the ship.
Drill stand on the Sedco Forex BP471 (Photo from the Nauticapedia collection.)
The ship contains state–of–the–art laboratories, equipment, and computers. The ship is 471 feet (144 meters) long, is 70 feet (21 meters) wide, and has a displacement of 18,600 short tons. Her derrick towers 211 feet (64 meters) above the waterline, and a computer–controlled dynamic–positioning system stabilizes the ship over a specific location while drilling in water depths up to 27,000 feet (8230 meters).
The cores are studied immediately on board in the lab of the SEDCO_BP461 (Photo from the John MacFarlane collection.)
The drilling system collects cores from beneath the seafloor with a derrick and draw works that can handle 30,000 feet (9144 meters) of drill pipe. More than 12,000 square feet (1115 square meters) of space distributed throughout the ship is devoted to scientific laboratories and equipment.
The ship sails with a scientific and technical crew of 50 and a ship’s crew (including the drill crew) of 65.
Crane control house on the SEDCO_BP461 (Photo from the Nauticapedia collection.)
To quote from this article please cite:
MacFarlane, John M. (2011) The 1991 Visit of the Sedco Joides Resolution SEDCO_BP461 to Victoria BC. Nauticapedia.ca 2011. http://nauticapedia.ca/Gallery/Sedco_Fourex_Joides.php
Site News: November 20, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 94,591 vessel histories (with 16,203 images and 13,900 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters).
Vessel records are currently being reviewed and updated with more than 40,000 processed so far this year.
The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,599 entries (with 3996 images).
Thanks to contributor Mike Rydqvist McCammon for the hundreds of photos he has contributed to illustrate British Columbia’s floating heritage.
My very special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.
Also my special thanks to my volunteer content accuracy checker, John Spivey of Irvine CA USA, who continues (almost every day for the last couple of years) to proof read thousands of Nauticapedia vessel histories and provided input to improve more than 14,000 entries. His attention to detail has been a huge unexpected bonus in improving and updating the vessel detail content.