USCG A w a r d s Contract To O f f s h o r e Devices For O i l Spill Recovery System

Offshore Devices, Inc. of Peabody, Mass.

has been awarded a contract by the U.S.

Coast Guard for development and construction of a complete oil spill recovery system for protected waters. The performance period of this contract is for 121 •> months.

The complete system is based on four workboats 30 feet long by 8 feet wide, each having a separate function. Provided with the system are the following: containment barrier, self-adjusting weir skimming barrier, oil-water gravity separator, 250-gpm double-acting diaphragm pump, and oil storage capability.

The boats will be capable of water response speeds of over 20 knots. One boat is the main support vessel and contains 70 feet of skimming barrier, the oil-water separator, the pollution pump, and two 500-gallon pillow tanks. Two of the boats will contain about 300 feet of barrier each. This could be used for booming (including diversionary) operations.

When the oil is widely distributed, the 300-foot elements can be attached to the ends of the 70-foot skimming barrier to form a 670-foot length and a gap width of 435 feet in a "U" configuration.

The containment boom will have joints every 100 feet to permit varying the boom length. In the long skimming barrier mode, the boom boats do the towing. The support vessel drops 20 feet behind the skimming elements (center 10 feet of boom), is towed by the boom, and does the oil pumping and oil-water separation. The fourth boat contains pillow tanks (about 10,000 gallons total capacity in 10 to 14 tanks), and shuttles full and empty tanks to and from shore.

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