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Sitka marine launches new seismic boat
Geokinetics Exploration, which recently acquired PGS Onshore, to take delivery of three specially built catamarans this summer
In mid-May, Allen Marine launched a unique catamaran that will be used by PGS Onshore, recently purchased by Geokinetics Exploration, for seismic-related work in the Beaufort Sea this summer. It is the third such vessel the Houston-based Geokinetics has had the Sitka boat builder build, a contract that Allen Marine officials said was approaching $4 million.
The seismic work will be in the Canadian Beaufort Sea and managed by Geokinetics Canadian office. The Alaska office will be sending some of its people with Alaska Beaufort Sea experience to assist them. That PGS office is managed by Larry Watt, who will remain in the same position for Geokinetics.
On May 10 the third boat, the Geo Tiger II, underwent a brief sea trial at the Allen Marine’s Sawmill Creek Road headquarters.
A 64-foot aluminum boat with a split hull, the boat has to be disassembled and placed onto trucks for the long trip north.
“It’s been a neat process, it’s totally different from what we normally do,” said Ken Baker, who managed the project for the Southeast Alaska boat building company.
Baker said Geokinetics wanted an entirely mobile fleet, and provided Allen with a design for boats that could be broken down into pieces that could fit on standard shipping trucks.
Baker said the boats Allen recently completed could be transported by truck, train, or even airplane.
The catamarans are scheduled to leave Sitka June 7. They will be barged to Skagway, and then loaded onto a truck for the drive north to Canada’s Beaufort Sea coast.
Due in Mackenzie Bay July 15 The boats are due in Mackenzie Bay July 15. Once there, a team of eight to 10 Allen workers, overseen by Baker, will put the boats back together.
Baker explained that the three boats will eventually work as part of a team. Each is equipped with two 600-horsepower motors, and the boats are designed to go 10 to 11 knots.
The Geo Tiger II is a “gun boat” that will tow two large skiffs equipped with “compressed-air shotguns.” The other two catamarans, line boats, will follow behind, laying cable.
The hull of each catamaran can be broken into three pieces. Each boat’s wheelhouse can also be removed, and broken in two. Baker said each boat has about 4,000 connecting bolts and two generators.
They’re designed to work in remote areas, and each is equipped with plenty of spare parts.
In February, Geokinetics purchased the onshore seismic data acquisition and multi-client data library business of PGS.
The acquisition, Geokinetics said, builds on its strengths in transition zone, ocean bottom cable and land vibroseis data acquisition and adds new operating areas including Alaska and Mexico, as well as certain new countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
—The Associated Press contributed to this article. Most of the information came from an article by Craig Giammona, published in the Daily Sitka Sentinel.
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