My life at work: on an offshore rig
Bob Carnegie is a seafarer on an offshore gas rig. What's the job like, and what do you do? I'm employed as a merchant seafarer on a semi-submersible gas rig off the north-west coast of Australia, the Ensco 7500. The reason I'm employed is that under Australian Marine Orders, self-propelled rigs have to have a certain marine complement. I work night shifts, 12 hours a day, seven days a week, on a three-week cycle: three weeks on the rig, and then three weeks back home in Brisbane. For the merchant seafarers on the rig, a lot of our work is looking after life-saving equipment and trying to keep...