Taken on board a recent voyage across two oceans and five seas. I thought I would try out one of the floatation suits:
10 September, 2010
How to be a tool, or, possibly the worst photographs of me ever
Posted by stalinsmoustache under total depravity, weird | Tags: Floatation suit, Tool |[20] Comments
10 September, 2010 at 8:35 am
that’s disturbing.
10 September, 2010 at 8:38 am
Ah Jim, that’s the ‘real’ me.
10 September, 2010 at 8:39 am
I am afraid I wore one of these twenty years ago, and the style hasn’t changes at all. One thing I remember though was being told to hold it upside down by the feet just in case some bugger had peed in it last time out.
On a more somber note, while I was enjoying my stint in the sun on a recently exploded North Sea oil rig, a helicopter crashed and killed the crew (“Three men were killed in August 1991 when their Bell 212 crashed while on maintenance work at a platform in the Ekofisk field.” [http://news.scotsman.com/northseaaccidents/Death-toll-tops-100-in.2343962.jp]). Made the journey back a chilling prospect, and I was glad of the suit (though I was told that 90 minutes in the North Sea in one of them would leave your legs black; without one you were fucked in three minutes; glad I never found out.)
BTW the William Lyons who wrote the story wasn’t me. Life is full of weird coincidences
10 September, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Sham eyou stopped writing your blog, William John Lyons, or is that what comes from having two first names. As a ocntrast, I’m told that you can surivive in tropical waters for months, assuming you don’t get eaten or your skin doesn’t wrinkle away.
10 September, 2010 at 9:51 pm
Having two first names is a vain attempt to make me more interesting than I am
Actually it is my parents fault, but there you go.
In Sebastian Junger’s book A Perfect Storm, they search for one of the rescue guys who is lost for ages thinking he could happily survive off the florida coast. Being told that if you fell off the rig, they only had three minutes to find you (and only that if you had survived the first shock was hairy, especially with decks you could see through.) That was the last big job I did before I quit my former life and went to University. But that was when you got a grant and could leave Uni debt-free. In other words, a long time ago.
10 September, 2010 at 10:29 am
You look remarkably like a teletubby in that Roland! Perhaps a new career in children’s entertainment?
10 September, 2010 at 2:39 pm
It was a passing thought – for about 3 seconds.
10 September, 2010 at 1:11 pm
na – orange doesn’t serve you well. Stick to red. Better for your complexion.
10 September, 2010 at 2:41 pm
Can you imagine 23 crew, all walking out in one of these to board the enclosed lifeboat. ‘This is a serious situation’, yells the captain, to a crew engulfed in laughter and unable to do anything.
10 September, 2010 at 2:49 pm
hmm – if they’re gonna drown they may as well die laughing. And what can/can’t you do with three digits on each upper limb?
12 September, 2010 at 6:32 pm
Steph – I agree!! What is with the three-digit hands?! Are they really hoping you will turn into an amphibious orange “thing” that someone will then rescue?! Yeah right! leaving you right there in the water mister …
13 September, 2010 at 10:55 am
Based on winter mountaineering experience, the best protection for fingers in extreme cold is to wear mittens, that way you can generate extra warmth by rubbing all yr fingers against each other. But mittens in an emergency at sea would inhibit dexterity, so my hunch is that the 3-digit arrangement on the suit is a compromise: the thumb, crucial for a firm grip, is on its own, but 4 fingers then go into the 2 fingers of the suit, which at least allows a couple of one’s digits to rub against each other for warmth, while allowing for more dexterity than a mitten.
Roland may be able to confirm this?
In any event, Roland, the next time you fill in an application form which requires your photo, you’ll know what to choose….
13 September, 2010 at 5:00 pm
Back from riding the Norwegian section of the North Sea Coast bicycle route for a few days: endless mountains, rain and wind – in other words, thoroughly enjoyable.
So then:
John, I am actually starting to believe that you did work on an oil rig, just like someone here (a woman) in Oslo who teaches New Testament used to be an engineer on a container ship.
Steph and Gillian and Ken,
I have no idea why there are three fingers on the suit. Reminds me of an old baseball mitt I found in the basement in Montreal in 1989. It had three fingers as well. Strength in numbers? Sharing the pain? Ken’s probably right: warmth and practicality.
13 September, 2010 at 9:49 pm
yes of course Ken’s right but don’t tell him that!! But Gillian’s right – nobody is going to rescue that weird orange three fingered monster – it’s obviously a threat to humanity, better let it drown.
I’m just off to buy old fashioned flat pedals for my fancy flash amerikaaggn racing bike so I stop getting my foot trapped in those ridiculous racing pedals and falling off and cracking!! my ribs – twice anyway and I’ve only had it a month.
14 September, 2010 at 6:53 am
You an unbeliever? Never.
I worked for the Health and Safety Executive as a photographer for five years (1986-91) and spent five days on a rig in 1991 while working on an accident investigation. Two months later I had quit and was starting a BA degree in Biblical Studies at Sheffield. As a former life, it is vaguely interesting, I guess. Not least cos I got to wear a rubber suit like yours!
15 September, 2010 at 2:31 am
John, I never realised we would have this deeper connection when I slipped into the damn thing and then sweated like the proverbial porcine.
19 September, 2010 at 5:20 pm
I hope I see one of these photos on the back of a publication some day.
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