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Mr. Charlie's mud sack room. One-hundred pound sacks of barite drilling mud stacked to the ceiling in the room where they are mixed before being pumped down the well. |
| Under the drill floor lies the "moon pool". The blowout preventor and other safety equipment are in place. |
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The engine room inside the barge contains the electric generators, mud pumps, cement pumps, fuel tanks, fuel pumps, ballast tanks, ballast pumps, cement tanks and all the other heavy equipment that was not required to be on the platform above. |
| The inner working of the engine room, deep inside the barge below the water. |
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Every weld is checked and double checked. Everything must be perfect if this concept in drilling is going to prove successful. |
| Final touches are added to the world's first transportable offshore drilling rig as it prepares to leave the shipyard. |
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The renowned "Mr. Charlie" prepares to leave Alexander Shipyard, 1954. The living quarters were a single story tin building with a peaked roof. The jack-knife style derrick is raised for drilling, and lowered for transporting. |