• Defence

Singapore sling

A double contract gives enhanced saturation diving system expertise to JFD.

There was great excitement at JFD when the team won an exclusive partnership deal with Flash Tekk Engineering in Singapore to supply the life support systems for a new advanced range of diving support vessels for Flash Tekk's parent company Ultra Deep Solutions.

Since the last issue of Pelican, the contract has been expanded to include four self-propelled hyperbaric lifeboats (SPHLs) for the first two of Ultra Deep Solutions' new vessels.

In the past JFD has only provided equipment for these specialist lifeboats, but the combined contracts for life support systems as well as these complete SPHLs means JFD will be supplying a comprehensive support service to these new advanced diving vessels.

"These contracts allow us to offer a new generation of advanced SPHLs to the commercial diving market, which will greatly improve the likelihood of the successful safe recovery and decompression of all divers evacuated from a vessel, should an emergency occur in diving operations."

Says Giovanni Corbetta, JFD's managing director.

JFD's Divex branded hyperbaric chambers and life support equipment will be installed on a lifeboat designed by Vanguard Composite Engineering, a specialist lifeboat manufacturer based in Singapore, with Vanguard supplying the launch and recovery systems.

Giovanni adds;

"We are proud to be developing this complete hyperbaric rescue service together with Vanguard - it means we will be able to work together in the future to supply other companies with a complete hyperbaric evacuation system like this."

A team of 20 technicians will be working on the SPHL project for JFD through to the end of 2019.

What is a self-propelled hyperbaric lifeboat (SPHL) and how does it work?

SPHLs are the emergency lifeboats installed on dive support vessels which accompany diving operations at sea where divers are installing, maintaining and repairing oil fields. Because they work at extreme depths (as much as 350 metres below sea level) the divers live in a pressurised state in hyperbaric chambers while they complete their work.

In the event of an emergency or illness, an SPH can be called upon to evacuate the diver(s) and bring them safely to the shore or support vessel - still under pressure - where they can be transferred to an onshore decompression facility allowing them to be slowly decompressed back to surface pressure. This complex process can take up to one week to complete safely. The larger SPHLs are being designed to transfer up to 24 divers at a time inside a pressurised chamber in each of the lifeboats.