![]() At this point the captain wrote in his log book, “They’re gone.” Nearly another full minute had passed at which point the capsule resurfaced They waited over a minute expecting to see the debris of the capsule surface amongst the waves, but saw nothing. One wave in particular the captain recorded took the capsule 60 ft and plunged it into the sea. The crew spent their long night singing songs in the capsule waiting for their rescuers as they were tossed among the enormous waves. Unfortunately for Tim and the crew the sees were too rough at the time to rescue them so the decision had to be made to leave them until the waters were safer which would not be until the next morning. Just a few hours after they evacuated the Rowan Gorilla I rolled aft and capsized. After this the capsule proceeded its decent and made it safely down to the water where they pulled the second release. As the capsule was lowering they were struck by a wave that threw the capsule into the side of the rig and tim recalls a “incredible bang” when they hit. At this moment the decision was made that the crew would evacuate the rig and make for our capsule.Īfter loading the crew into our 36 man capsule they conducted a final safety check and head count, pulled the first release and began their descent toward the water. In the video the subject Tim recalls seeing their “rig torn apart with monstrous waves rising above the deck and ravaging across.”Īround noon on December 15th the waves were recorded at 50-60ft and the captain gives a warning to the superintendent that the rig was in imminent danger of sinking. ![]() The weight of the flooding lowered the stern to the point where waves began breaking over the deck. Over the next two days the rough seas battered the rig forcing the rigs legs to oscillate which caused severe fractures in the hull and flooded the storage tanks in the stern. On the morning of December 13th the crew is faced with their first signs of trouble as a storm brought in 40 ft waves along with winds of 60 knots. They had commissioned the Smit London to tow their rig there and the crew were ready for their trans-atlantic mission. Low levels of drilling activity and huge maintenance costs had pushed Rowan to look to the North Sea as a more lucrative location for their rig. This story begins on the 8th of December 1988 in Halifax, Canada. The amazing true story of Tim Matherson who was safely rescued from the Gorilla I disaster because of a Survival Systems International Totally Enclosed Motor Propelled Survival Craft (TEMPSC).
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