Happy drillers

Rupert Sutherland, GNS Science and Victoria University of Wellington
John Townend, Victoria University of Wellington
Virginia Toy, University of Otago

Broken drill bit recovered from the lost BHA. 5/11/2014 Photo R. Sutherland.

Happy drillers: Luke Valour (left) and Tony Lyons (right). 5/11/14 Photo: R. Sutherland.

Was it great to see that smashed up drill bit finally recovered? Yes it was!

It took longer than we thought to get everything on deck, but finally the fish was landed, cleaned, and checked. The drill bit was a write-off (see photos), but the other components were surveyed by an engineer (who arrived by helicopter) and they are apparently undamaged — they are very solid steel.

Minor fishing operations continue as we recover remaining small fragments, but we are nearly there. We will collect wireline logs tonight. Tomorrow, a new drill bit will arrive, and a new BHA configured. We have an engineer’s report into the original winch failure and repairs will be complete tomorrow.



Hail on us, sunshine everywhere else. 4/11/14 Photo: K. Sauer

Check out our new video... Minerals and Alpine Fault drilling

Primary funders of the DFDP-2 project are: the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP), the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society of New Zealand, GNS Science, Victoria University of Wellington, and the University of Otago.