Original subtitles

Today, on Impossible Engineering, pioneering spirit, the world's biggest

We're the widest, we're the heaviest, we're also the longest vessel in the

world. Setting world records as the most powerful offshore lifting machine on

the planet.

It's really challenging, of course. It's something completely new, not been done

before. But to accomplish these feats, engineers must rely on pioneering

innovations of the past.

What an amazing machine. Incredible.

To make the impossible possible.

The Netherlands.

For over 100 years, standard shallow water oil rigs here and everywhere

a large share of the world's oil. But today, these fields are drying up. And

2050, standard oil rigs like these will be obsolete.

In the old days, nobody thought of removing a platform, but the idea was to

it at sea for years.

Nowadays, from an environmental point of view, platforms have to be

decommissioned.

The standard oil rig can weigh over 48 ,000 tons.

A steel base fixed to the seafloor supports the massive topside.

which holds the drill rig and processing plant.

But today, site coordinator Dan Ackerboom must dismantle these old metal

The conventional method always was with cranes on a big barge.

Removing a platform in an old -fashioned way has a lot of disadvantages, mainly

because you're offshore for a long time.

It's a lot of lifting, and lifting is always a risk.

With so many decommissioned rigs to remove, the industry needs something

radical.

What we want, it didn't exist, so we have to design something differently and

something new.

So in August 2016, engineers create the world's largest ship, pioneering

spirit.

With this $3 billion mega vessel, Vice President of Innovations André Steinhaus

is changing the game.

This idea is quite revolutionary.

If you have to do something which you have never done before, it's difficult.

Weighing more than a million tons, this giant is the biggest vessel on the

ocean. The pioneering spirit is 400 feet wide and, when fully deployed, extends

over a staggering 1 ,500 feet.

Boosted by 12 powerful 6 ,000 kilowatt azimuth thrusters,

this colossus both removes and installs oil platforms and even lays pipe in the

deepest waters on the planet with eight pairs of 2 ,000 -ton lifting beams.

Its unprecedented bowel design allows the ship to straddle an oil platform and

pick up a 53 ,000 -ton oil rig topside with one Herculean lift.

It's really challenging, of course. It's something completely new, not been done

before.

But constructing a lifting system of this magnitude requires a giant ship.

And this comes with unprecedented hurdles.

The size of the vessel already makes it difficult.

Almost 200 ,000 tons of steel you have to produce well and install.

And on top of that, we also have, of course, various complex systems on

which many yards are not used to.

So just how do you efficiently construct a megaship of such epic proportions to

build a ship this big?

Engineers must look to the maritime trailblazers of the past.

As far as boats are concerned, size has always mattered.

And once humanity mastered the basics, engineers were soon building big.

In ancient Egypt, King Ptolemy IV's warship, Tessara Conteres, was the

largest human -powered vessel from antiquity.

At a lengthy 425 feet, 4 ,000 slaves were supposed to power the boat by

But in practice, the vessel wasn't very mobile.

In 1625, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden commissioned his giant warship,

Vasa.

But with two gun decks of brass cannons, it was top -heavy, and a small gust of

wind pushed her over on her maiden voyage.

Luckily, some more effective engineering techniques were emerging on the

horizon.

In Baltimore Harbor, naval historian Claude Berube is exploring a unique

revolutionary cargo vessel from World War II, known as a Liberty ship.

This is the SS John W. Brown.

One of 2 ,700 Liberty ships built during World War II.

She's one of only two operational Liberty ships anywhere in the world.

And she represents some groundbreaking engineering.

Liberty ships carried vital supplies from the U .S. across the Atlantic to

Europe.

But German U -boats destroyed them en masse.

The Allies were facing a problem.

They were losing supply ships at a dramatic rate.

And traditional construction methods couldn't replace the lost ships fast

enough.

Prior to 1941, ships were built piece by piece, and then they would be riveted

together. Well, what you would have is the keel that would be laid, and then

would have the ship's frame or the skeleton, and then you would have the

also riveted on.

Big ships took a long time to build, six months or more with hundreds of skilled

men. The Allies needed to find a way to build those ships at least faster than

the Germans could sink them.

In 1941, American industrialist Henry J. Kaiser offered an inspired solution.

Kaiser asked himself, instead of building piece by piece sequentially,

he built modules across the shipyard, and they would all then be assembled and

welded together, and this would save an extraordinary amount of time?

Kaiser built large modules simultaneously in different locations.

Once delivered to the shipyard, these prefabricated pieces weren't riveted.

were welded together much more quickly in a production line, just like the Ford

automobile.

Well, here we have large sections, prefabricated modules, that will be

assembled, put together, and welded in the shipyard. And you even see what we

have here is the house, which contains the bridge and the wardroom, and that

would be welded directly to the deck.

In 1941, Kaiser's revolutionary prefabricated ship could be produced in

days, cutting production time down dramatically by two -thirds.

One ship was built in a record setting four days.

Kaiser's shipbuilding program proved successful beyond expectation.

Many believe that without them, the war would have been lost, earning them the

title Liberty Ship.

Kaiser's shipbuilding program really changed shipbuilding forever.

Using what's called block construction.

the engineers of pioneering spirit are taking Kaiser's prefabrication technique

to an unprecedented scale.

The normal ship consists of 60 to 70 big blocks, but this ship almost consists

of 1 ,000 blocks, which were then preassembled to pre -erection blocks,

those pre -erection blocks were built or dropped in a dock, and there they were

welded together.

Originally constructed in Korea's enormous Daewoo shipyard, the vessel's

shape poses another massive challenge.

You have to consider we didn't build it in one dock. We built a portside hull in

a dock and a starboard hull in another floating dock.

And eventually we brought her together along the quayside.

She's a split hull, how we call it, because she's not really a catamaran.

We need to have the shape.

Otherwise, you can't move around different kinds of sizes of topside and

connect to the topside.

Even with prefabricated units, this ship is so huge, it takes four years to

build.

The amount of man -hours, the amount of welding work involved in that was two to

three times as much as they expected.

It is not really a vessel.

It's a big working island.

Pioneering Spirit's engineers have created an extraordinary vessel. But to

physically lift a 53 ,000 -ton oil rig from the sea, the engineers of

Spirit must draw on innovations of the past. Feels a bit like riding on a magic

carpet. To make the impossible possible.

The oceanic megaship, Pioneering Spirit, is the world's largest vessel.

And as the world's most heavy -duty lifting machine, it can pick up and

53 ,000 ton offshore oil rig platforms in a single epic lift.

The capacity of this vessel is quite unique. It's about a million ton of

displacement. The length and the width are huge.

This vessel is completely changed in how the traditional industry works.

What we do with this concept is that we don't lift the platform from the top, we

actually push it off from the jacket.

To begin the risky platform lift, pioneering Spirit must first lower the

torches down each leg of the oil platform.

Then the ship carefully maneuvers into position, with the dual bowels sliding

under the top side with enough room to spare.

We need to be able to increase or decrease the draft of this vessel to

we could get underneath a platform, which are all at different heights at

So how do you safely position a million -ton ship under an oil platform in rocky

waters?

To achieve this, designers must constantly run tests and draw from

history's engineering pioneers.

Science journalist Leila Nelliport is investigating a remote Panamanian

archipelago to unravel an extraordinary engineering mystery.

A

secret

that is only revealed twice a day.

So we're on a beach on San Selma Island.

When the tide is high, there's nothing really to see.

But once the tide goes low...

Amazing wreck.

For nearly 150 years, this wreck was a total mystery.

But a clue can be found in the very name of the archipelago, the Pearl Islands.

By the mid -1800s, oyster numbers here were dwindling, and pearl hunters could

no longer access them by free diving.

So, in 1863, American engineer Julius Kroll dove deep and developed something

audacious, a hand -powered submarine.

This mysterious wreck is what remains of it.

What's so special about this submarine is that it used a water ballast system

submerge. And it was actually the most sophisticated system of its time.

Pressurized with air pumped into it from a ship above, Julius Kroll pioneered a

system of flooding and blowing water ballast tanks that allowed this

vessel to go even deeper.

The way the people inside the submarine fetched the pearls is that since the

submarine was completely pressurized, it was able to go to the bottom of the

ocean, and then it had a hatch at the bottom of the structure that they could

just open, and the water wouldn't come in. So it could just reach out to the

bottom of the sea and fetch all the oysters.

So, how did the water ballast tanks inside Kroll's submarine work?

So this is the principle of the submarine explorer.

We have a tank here, and as we fill it with water, it will sink to the bottom.

So when they wanted to bring the submarine back up to the surface, they

compressed air tank.

And they compressed air into the water tank to put all the water up.

So now I've blown air into the tank full of water.

Some of the water has come up, and it has allowed the tank to come back up to

the surface.

What was so innovative about this water balance system is that the submarine

actually had the tanks placed in different parts of its structure.

So it allowed it to control if it wanted to go down nose first or tail first.

It also allowed it to control the trim of the submarine as it was descending.

This was still a very technologically advanced piece of engineering, and it's

amazing to be able to see it and feel it and touch it, something that has been

with us for over 150 years.

Inspired by Kroll's work, engineers of pioneering spirit are adapting this

ballast system on a gargantuan scale.

And Captain Fred Regtoop mans the controls.

We got over 87 ballast tanks, of which are four big drop tanks.

The biggest single tank is already 15 ,700 cubic meters, which is normally a

vessel. In total, we can occupy about 750 ,000 cubic meters of

ballast water.

But now, to position the vessel under the rig, Pioneering Spirit must fill its

numerous ballasts with water to submerge 55 more feet.

What we don't want is once the yokes or the beams are close to the platform,

that they will hit the platform.

Once in place. pioneering spirit begins the lift process.

First, the ship must connect a series of yokes to the platform.

But this poses a dangerous problem.

You have to be able to compensate for all the vessel motions when you're

in the platform. If you don't have that, then the collision impact will be

enormous and the project will finish.

So how can engineers accurately connect to the rig when water constantly moves

the ship?

The team looks to innovations of the past to make the impossible possible.

As the biggest ship on the planet, pioneering spirit faces an equally

task, to lift this gargantuan oil rig in one fell swoop. But the constant motion

that the sea exerts on the ship poses a monumental challenge.

To connect to the rig, engineers must turn to the breakthroughs of the past.

This is the Lennis Montlary Racetrack near Parrot.

And physicist Susie Shee is putting the pedal to the metal of an extraordinary

car.

This is the Citroen DS, a true icon of French motoring.

And while she's undoubtedly a thing of absolute beauty, it's actually the

engineering underneath the bodywork that makes it truly remarkable.

By the 1950s, mass production and new technologies made cars more affordable.

But their comfort left much to be desired.

Here in France. A combination of poor quality roads and the early spring

suspension system meant that if you wanted to travel at speed, the ride was

going to be pretty uncomfortable.

So in 1955, Citroën engineer Paul Maget devised a solution that completely

overrode suspension and handling.

Now, conventional suspension systems are based on springs.

So if I have a soft spring like this one, it's pretty good at absorbing fast

bumps and jolts in the road.

But when I'm going around corners, the softness means my handling is a little

bit compromised.

If I go, though, instead for a stiffer spring like this big one here, it's not

very good at absorbing bumps in the road, but it's much better through

with handling.

So essentially there's a catch -22 here.

If you want a really comfy ride, your handling is going to be affected.

But if handling is your top priority, then it's not going to be a very

comfortable experience.

To provide both comfort and handling, Majest got rid of the springs

In their place, he connected a rod from the wheel to a spear divided by a rubber

membrane.

The top contains gas.

which compresses and absorbs any shock, while hydraulic fluid in the bottom

transfers that force.

On bumpy rides, the rod pushes the fluid, transferring force to the

compressing the gas above and absorbing the impact.

Any excess force dissipates when the non -compressible hydraulic fluid pushes up

through a valve.

To find out how effective this novel suspension system might be, Dr. Sheehy

the Citroën to the test.

This is really quite amazing.

I mean, driving down this really bumpy road in my car or a normal car, I'd be

feeling lots of jolts and bumps, but in this car I can't feel them.

Because I'm riding on this kind of cushion of air.

Not only can it cope really well with bumps in the road, but it actually has

another trick up its sleeve.

It has an automatic self -leveling system so that regardless of how much

you put in the car or where it's placed, extra hydraulic fluid will be pumped

around into the spheres, which will compensate for the weight and bring it

up to its optimal ride height.

In fact, the system is so clever that it can even compensate for having a wheel

missing.

Absolute genius.

Because of its revolutionary hydromantic suspension system, the Citroën DS is

one of the most influential cars of all time.

Engineers on Pioneering Spirit are taking Majest's stabilizing system to

breathtaking heights.

When the vessel is moving around the platform and we switch on to AMC, how we

call it, we call it active motion compensating.

The topside lift system consists of 16 giant beams, 8 per hull, each weighing

2 ,000 tons.

Each beam houses cylinders containing pressurized air separated from hydraulic

fluid, similar to Majasis spheres.

These beams act as a buffer and help reduce any movement caused by rough

The combination of the hydraulics and the air system that we have, that makes

actually a big and a giant shock absorber.

Alongside the ship's motion compensation technology, this cutting -edge

hydropneumatic system cushions the impact of rough seas.

All beams can move in all three degrees of freedom, so X, Y and Z direction.

The key aspect in the whole beam system is all the hydraulics and the pneumatics

involved make sure that the beams can compensate for all the vessel emotions

to the wave.

We always say that the beams are standing still in the world and the

moving.

To begin the epic lift, the team positions the beam under the oil rig's

and activates the motion compensation system.

Cutting torches inside the jacket legs cut the oil rig free.

Then, pioneering spirit engages its hydraulic system and picks up the rig's

topside in one Herculean lift.

We simply push one button, which eventually pushes more than two meter

between. The top side and the legs.

We can lift 48 ,000 tons on the bow, 25 ,000 tons on the stern, which is quite

unique.

For the whole industry, it will be a big, big game changer.

But salvaging rigs is only one of the jobs this Colossus must perform.

To tackle missions further out in the deep sea, pioneering spirit must draw on

the innovations of the past.

And this was it. The Lombard Steam Log Hauler.

To make the impossible possible.

Pioneering Spirit is the biggest and most innovative ocean vessel on the

The length of five jumbo jets, this monster salvages 53 ,000 -ton oil rig

platforms in one gargantuan lift.

But even this incredible accomplishment is not enough to be worth the $3 billion

price tag.

Vice President of Innovation André Steenhaus must keep this colossal

running at all times.

Time is money, so we have to keep on working as long as possible.

We want to have the double functionality on this vessel, because when you do the

heavy lifting, the vessel is occupied for a very short time.

And the other time, when we are waiting, we can also lay pipe.

But laying extreme lengths of large -scale oil and gas pipelines in the

waters on the planet is no small feat.

Because each individual pipe can weigh up to 2 ,200 tons, the pipelines can

buckle under their own weight.

We have to find another way to explore the deeper findings of oil.

And therefore you need to have a vessel which has lots of capacity and

possibilities to install pipelines.

To lay heavy pipes in deep water, it is difficult.

So how do you safely control and lay heavy pipes in deep and difficult

Once again, engineers must turn to a groundbreaking innovation of the past.

Roughly 90 % of Maine is forest, more than any other state in the U .S.

Mechanical engineer Michael Tobias is exploring the logging history of the

tree state of Maine.

As far back as the early European settlers, these timbers have been used

valuable source of income.

Traditionally, loggers cut down trees closest to the river.

Then, log drivers used the river's current to send the trees to Riverside

Sawmill.

However, once the trees closest to the bank were chopped down, a problem

to arise.

Pulling heavy timber through the forest on traditional carts proved impossible

because the cart's wheels got bogged down in mud and snow.

With thousands of acres of forest being rendered untouchable, a solution had to

be found.

And quickly.

In 1901, inventor and lumberjack Alvin Lombard developed a groundbreaking hack

based on his own experience as a logger.

As I step onto the mud, I slip and I sink.

A lot of weight is resting on a small amount of surface area. To overcome

I need to spread my weight on a larger surface area, keeping myself afloat.

And when I get the piece from behind me and lay it down in front of me, I'm able

to continue moving forward with evenly distributed weight.

Lombard mechanized this process step by step, and his invention changed the

logging industry forever.

And this was it, the Lombard Steam Log Hauler.

What an amazing machine.

Incredible.

The secret of its success lies beneath the machine itself.

The genius of Lombard's design is a continuous track, spreading the

weight across the ground.

and providing even traction.

It effectively lays its own roadway.

The Lombard would typically tow eight sleds, laden with lumber, weighing in a

massive 300 tons.

Loggers used this visionary machine all year round, even in snow, and it became

the first commercial continuously tracked vehicle.

Lombard's design was a stroke of genius, and this machine would revolutionize

the way engineers around the globe would design and build vehicles for

agriculture, construction, and military use.

What an incredibly engineered machine.

Pioneering Spirit employs four gigantic tensioners.

Each one fitted with over 300 feet of continuous track.

Like the Lombard log hauler, these tracks increase the surface area in

with the pipe.

And this technique evenly distributes tension, allowing for a precisely

controlled delivery of pipes to the ocean floor.

Here we are at the end of the production line. Here you can see one of the four

tensioners which we have on the Pioneer Spirit.

One of the six tensioners.

It can have a capacity of 500 tons.

The pipe is clamped in between tensioner shoes.

Shoes can move a little bit so they've got the optimum position.

So they've got the optimum pressure on the pipe so you don't damage the pipe.

This tracks on the pipe, hold the pipe continuously on the vessel.

The tensioners play a crucial role in the onboard pipe assembly line.

where the joints are welded together at different stations.

The welding platforms that the guys are standing on are moving along with the

pipe during the production of the pipe.

Engineers on the ship can produce 1 ,300 feet of large -gauge pipe every hour.

The tensioners grip these megaton pipes and push them out over a giant stinger

to the seafloor.

Because we have this tenseness, we can lay deeper pipes.

We have less environmental issues with the pipe.

There's no scene in the world where the pioneering spirit cannot lay a pipe.

Pioneering spirit stands at the cutting edge of deep sea oil exploration.

But even this robust vessel is vulnerable.

If the weather changes or suddenly big waves come, they have to stop and

the whole operation.

To protect this massive ship from the violent ocean storms that roll in,

engineers must once again draw inspiration from the past. It really

mean, it's surprisingly strong.

To achieve even more impossible engineering.

Pioneering Spirit is a $3 billion ocean colossus. This extraordinary vessel

holds the world record for the displacement of over 1 million tons of

also making it the heaviest floating object on Earth.

But not even this marine behemoth can stop Mother Nature.

You have to go more out in deeper waters, so you're much more exposed to

difficult weather conditions.

During deep -sea pipeline missions, unpredictable storms and unwieldy waves

threaten the ship.

And site coordinator Dan Ackerboom must protect both the ship and the crew.

If the weather changes or suddenly big waves come, they have to stop and

the whole operation.

So, just how do you safely disengage the ship from hundreds of tons of pipe?

that extend over a mile down onto the ocean floor amidst a raging sea.

To accomplish this complex task, engineers must turn to the innovators of

past.

Physicist Dr. Susie Sheehy is in Germany exploring an earth -shattering

invention that revolutionized another important industry, mining.

This is the upper heart, one of the most historically important mining regions

in Germany.

Mining has taken place in these hills for centuries.

But 19th century mining engineers faced an uphill battle in procuring valuable

ore.

Once it was chiseled free from the rock, it was loaded into large wooden buckets

so it could be hauled up to the surface.

Some of the shafts reached a staggering depth of 800 meters, which was below the

sea level, so that ore had a long journey all the way up to the surface.

Originally, miners lifted the buckets with hemp fiber ropes.

In these damp conditions, the moisture would cause ropes to disintegrate, so

instead they used chains.

But chains weren't much better in terms of safety, because a single weak link

could cause a catastrophic failure with no warning.

In 1831, mining engineer Wilhelm Albert wound up developing something

revolutionary.

Albert determined that there were a few key factors as to why chains were

breaking. He realised that if you load a chain again and again, eventually the

metal will become fatigued and that will reduce its tensile strength.

And breaks in the chain are more likely to happen where there's joins and links.

All it takes is a single point breakage for the whole system to fail.

It just completely failed.

This is incredibly dangerous.

I mean, you can imagine a thousand pounds of silver ore crashing down on

head. After experimenting with chains for a while, Albert realized that he

needed an entirely new solution.

And what he came up with was simple but ingenious.

Albert's idea was to take four individual strands of wire and then

together to form a helix.

He'd then take three of those and twist those together to make it even stronger.

So this made a kind of wire rope, and you can tell already it seems much

stronger, and it should be able to take a much heavier load. So let's try it

out.

So it really worked. I mean, it's lifting a surprising load. It's

strong, even though it's made of tissue paper.

The secret to its success is the continuous strands.

There's no individual joins or linkages that can fail.

And here I have an original piece of wire rope, and you can see that it's

up of individual strands, just like the demonstration.

Albert Rope, named after its inventor, was so successful that he soon installed

it in mine shafts all across this region.

In fact, wire rope caught on all across the globe and not just in mine.

You can see versions of it in the modern world from suspension bridges to cable

cars.

But just how can this game -changing invention save pioneering spirit from

torrential wrath of Mother Nature?

Pioneering Spirit is the largest vessel on the planet.

It's capable of laying oil pipes over a mile deep onto the ocean floor. But to

save lives during the most devastating deep sea storm, engineers must use wire

rope, originally developed in the 19th century, but on a colossal scale.

Wire cables play a key role in the ship's deep sea abandon and recovery

When you are installing a pipeline and you are midway and the weather is

up, bad weather or even a hurricane, you have to abandon the pipe. So in that

situation, you weld on the end of the pipe, you weld ahead.

The cap welded onto the end pipe is watertight, and the heavyweight wire

lower the end pipe to the ocean floor.

There, an underwater robot cuts the cables, freeing the ship.

This is the cable, 5 -inch cable, quite big,

and 4 ,850 meters of length,

able to lay down the pipe with 500 tons each, so a total of 2 ,000 tons of lay

-down capacity.

This system looks very large, but it has to act very precisely.

To achieve such precision during abandon and recovery, or A &R, engineers must

supersize the way the cables are deployed.

Our A &R system has four of these winches.

These are the biggest winches you can buy.

For the biggest pipelines, you need all four of them.

And to ensure accuracy when using all four giant winches, engineers have built

in a fail -safe design.

Here I've got a right -handed cable, so you can see the helix is going up to the

right. And the other side of the vessel, we've got also two of these winches.

They are left -handed, so the helix is going the other way.

The left and right helices prevent the cables from getting intertwined and

tangled. We can play with the tensions and we can rotate the cable so we can

connect the cable to the pipeline.

This is unique to the world and to the pioneering spirit.

With breakthrough engineering and design, pioneering spirit is raising the

for the entire oil industry.

We can lift over 48 ,000 tons.

We're twice as big as the second biggest pipe layer in the world, so we create

our own jobs.

If you're an engineer, this is...

The dream of everybody to be involved in this project.

To be involved in development and designing and building a festival like

very unique.

You never get a chance to make something which changes the industry.

By drawing from the innovators of the past, adapting and making trailblazing

discoveries of their own.

The engineers and designers behind Pioneering Spirit have succeeded in

the impossible possible.

People ask me, oh, what are you going to do afterwards? I said, I don't know. I

mean, have you built the biggest ship in the world? So what's next? I don't

know.

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