Part 6 – Fateful Decision – All the Men In the Sea: The Untold Story of One of the Greatest Rescues in History
Fateful Decision
By early afternoon Tuesday, Superintendent Lobb and Joe Perot, C.C.C.’s operations chief and Lobb’s boss back in Ciudad del Carmen—the closest port and city, 60 miles away—had made a fateful decision.
It would determine the future of the 269, her two tugs, and all the men onboard the three vessels. Two other barges belonging to C.C.C. had also been working in the oil field.
The Sara Maria was a smaller derrick barge used only to work on offshore oil platforms.
During Hurricane Opal, which had hit the Gulf two weeks before Roxanne, the Sara Maria had dropped her big storm anchor and was still dragged more than 50 miles until she was nearly thrown onshore.
When Roxanne came along, the barge’s superintendent, Doug Hebert, demanded that she be towed into the sheltered bay at Carmen.
The old lay barge Mega Dos, similar in size to the 269, was also towed in.
Yet Richard Lobb and Joe Perot decided that the 269, which was working in the same general area as the other barges, would ride out the hurricane under tow.
Clyde 60 DE crane
All Business
Richard Lobb was a big man, 6 feet 2 inches and muscular.
Even in his middle fifties he was in reasonably good shape without having to exercise.
Lobb had worked his way up on the oilfield barges, from lining up pipe sections for welding to foreman to superintendent, and had been in that position on the 269 for many years.
At any hour of the day or night, Lobb could be seen conferring with one of his foremen or supervisors or striding down the deck in a neatly pressed shirt and jeans to be present wherever or whenever important operation was taking place.
The 269‘s head man, a gravel-voiced good-old-boy from Port Arthur, Texas, was friendly, but he was all business.
He made sure every job was done correctly. Lobb personally checked the barge’s log, in which every major occurrence during each six-hour period was noted.
And besides demanding careful work, he required personal neatness of every man onboard.
A Local Captain
Mexican law dictates that every vessel registered in that country must have a Mexican captain in charge. The 269‘s regular captain was off duty and temporarily ashore.
In his place was Acting Captain Miguel Alvarez Cantu.
Several crew members reported, however, that Cantu was licensed only to operate a vessel no larger than 7,500 tons, and the 269 was over 8,000 gross tons.
If his license was in fact limited to smaller vessels, Cantu was not legally qualified to captain her.
In any case, according to many of the divers and barge crew, the Mexican captains were figureheads.
On all important questions both captains deferred to Richard Lobb.
They didn’t spit without first getting his permission.
The crew members agreed: on the 269 Richard Lobb was king.
The one person Lobb did defer to was Joe Perot.
During the days ahead they would have frequent radio consultations.
Everyone else took orders from Lobb, even the diving contingent, who was theoretically independent of his authority.
If anyone disobeyed his orders, that person could be riding the next crew boat ashore, possibly out of a job.
Sure, they could complain to the company, but probably to no avail.
On Time, Over Budget
Besides seeing that the work was done correctly, Lobb was to see that it was done on time.
But the barge was weeks behind in her work schedule.
And now that they had to discontinue operations to prepare for the hurricane, they would fall even further behind.
Completing the work was vitally important to C.C.C. because it would bring to a close a $27 million contract with Pemex and thus the contractor would receive all the money the oil company owed it.
There was a major problem, however.
The Pemex-C.C.C. contract called for the work to be completed August 23, 1995, 180 days from the time the job began.
For every day past August 23 that the work was not completed, a penalty of 0.2 percent (1 percent for every five days) of the contract amount was to be deducted.
On October 10, when the divers were brought up, the 269 was already seven weeks behind schedule.
Delays due to acts of God (including storms) were deducted from the penalty amount but only if the storms were so severe that the Ciudad del Carmen port captain closed the port.
The port had been closed for only a few days owing to the two preceding hurricanes, so already nearly $1.5 million in penalties were due to be deducted.
If the 269 were towed to a safe port, non-reimbursable towing time would certainly exceed one and maybe two days—read an additional $54,000 to $108,000 in penalties.
If, on the other hand, the 269 held position just east of the work site, only a few hours would be lost towing in each direction.
It would later be argued that this was a mighty incentive for C.C.C. to keep the 269 in the oil patch.
Lobb, however, would later dispute this charge.
Closest Safe Harbor
Of course there were other considerations in dealing with the hurricane.
The entrance to the sheltered bay at Carmen was shallow and the channel poorly marked.
Then the bay itself was even more shallow.
They could drag the 269 in, but they might have a major job towing her out again.
There were two other ports, but they were farther away.
The closest one was Dos Bocas, about 100 miles to the southwest, and the other, Coatzacoalcos, was more than 180 miles away.
So unless either Joe Perot or Richard Lobb had a change of heart, they would take on the storm under tow.
No doubt the two men realized that there was always some risk in keeping the barge at sea, but it had survived countless storms in the past, so why shouldn’t it now?
Lashing Everything Down
Throughout the barge, preparations were underway.
In the galley the cooks were making what might be the last hot meal for the next few days.
Below the living deck even more frantic activity was taking place, especially on the machinery deck.
This, the lowest deck, running nearly the entire length and width of the 269, housed all the mechanical equipment that operated the various systems needed for the barge to do her work and to provide up to 250 men with good living conditions.
Forward on the machinery deck, engineer’s assistants were securing everything that wasn’t already lashed down in various compartments containing generators, compressors, the desalination and tanks (which produced the huge amount of fresh water needed every day), the air-conditioning and refrigeration equipment, and most of the vessel’s other large operating machinery.