Certification for Wirelock Reterms ?

What happened to a Skilled Engineering Technician been able to do a job.

If you are skilled and have the documents you should be allowed to do the reterm after all its tested anyway afterwards plus documents should be wrote up as well at the same time its done.

If you de-skill everything and everybody just does 20 courses to say they can do it why do you need the skilled Technician in the first place.

Skilled Technicians should not need a Wire Locking course as thats a different work scope all together.

But its the same taking the responsibilty away from the employer to the employee all the time.

Who has this Cert anyway? Riggers & Deck Crew

Had a look it appears that they are 2 day course’s as well.

Wire Rope Socketing

This course aims to provide delegates with a thorough grounding of the legal requirements and safe working practices pertaining to resin socketing of wire ropes and to teach them the practical skills involved. This two day LEEA accredited course is for those involved in the maintenance and socketing of wire ropes. Necessary for wire rope maintenance engineers

Lifting Equipment Engineers Association LEEA
.

So if you had the LEEA accredited course certifcate

Wire Rope Maintenance Engineer could do the mechanical
part of the reterm?

There is an IMCA document about main lifts and umbilicals.

Mainly it is down to Company Procedures, if they want a certified Wirelock Technician then that is up to them.

The majority of other companies, have a main lift reterm procedure which usually includes a "confidence test" where you attach the bullit to the deck or known point and pull while witnessed and inspected afterwards usually by ROV supervisor and vessel chief Engineer or Barge Eng on rig. Occasionally, a load test by third party company with load cell etc. is done but usually only when alongside.

I have never seen anyone with any specific certification for Wirelock.

The IMCA guidelines recommend a destruct test of a sample of main lift each year which would mean a main lift reterm every 12 months anyway.

Surely when you have completed the potting and completed a pull test that is enough.
I do remember on the Scarabeo 6 we had to have a load test engineer witness the pull test.

Company policy is one thing, but are as an industry are we opening ourselves up to potential trouble if there is legislation regarding lifting wires and we are not working to the correct standards or at least not holding the correct certification. Especially with the lawsuit society we now live in.

Maybe this is not a ground floor concern but the managers and senior management should possibly consider this.

I am all for training and courses if they improve my knowledge and my ability to do a job but wirelock comes with a simple and concise set of instructions which are not difficult to follow even I can do it so it really cannot be that difficult!!

I dont remember seeing anything in the instructions about bending the wires back on themselves !! Simple brooming is what they recommend yet some companies/ supervisors insist on it in a misplaced assumption that it is stronger.
So bring on a course for all concerned I say and end the doubts , old wives tales and general bullshit about probably the most important procedure in the business…..

Scott,

the reason Time said bring on a course is that it would seem different people have different ideas on how you should pot with Wirelock.

When I first started, my Supervisor said that the wires should be bent double back in on themselves before potting. Over the years, others have said the ends of the wires should be left sticking out of the potting ("you can see if they get pulled in then") and others the ends should be below the potting ("if you leave the ends out the wire will corrode and the corrosion will work its way up inside the potting").

Someone else told me the socket should be sprayed with silicon "so that the potting comes out easier at reterm". Unfortunately it also made the Wirelock not stick to the bullit and rattle about inside the socket!

After I made Sub Eng I just did it the way the ROV manufacturer told me to do it (clean the wires, ensure inside the socket was as grease free and smooth as possible, splay the wires out slightly and pot it so the ends of the wire were completely covered).

There are so many different ways people have "heard" or decided to do it. Luckily our ROVs systems are generally very "light" (under 12 tons!)

I think it would be a waste of time. Even when there were laid down manufacturers ways of doing it as well as Wirelock instructions, people changed bits and did it "their way".

Doing a course or a bit of paper would not stop people doing this.