One of the main activities on the ship is connecting large pipes that fit together that extend to the sea floor. Please see the following time lapse of the rig floor during this process.

The water depth at our site is 3,700 meters below the surface of the water. One pipe is around 10 meters long. Three pipes screw together for what we call “stand”, which is around 30 meters. The derrick in the middle of our ship allows us to connect these pieces of pipe together.

How many stand do we need to connect on order to reach the sea floor?

To calculate this we divide 3,700 meters by 30 meters and this gives us 123 stands. Therefore the rig floor has to connect the stands 123 times. It will also take the rig floor this many times to disconnect each stand when we bring the pipes back onboard the ship. Isn’t impressive?!