Occidental’s Piper jacket was designed and built by McDermott. It was based on Elf’s DP1 jacket on the Frigg field. The DP1 experienced installation problems so the flotation tanks were enhanced with stiffeners. The jacket was then skidded onto the barge at the construction site.

 It was common for  caterpillar -style systme to be sued , however, the 14000t jacket was just outside the weight limit.  Instead, the system used gripper jacks that pulled the tacket along an I-beam. McDermott put teflon onthe running surfaces to avoid friction issues.

The steel platform being launched  at  Occidental’s Piper field. Built by McDermott, it was then, the largest barge-launched jacket at 152m high and weighing 14,000t.  During the nine hours it took to skid off,  the weather worsened with waves running at up to 5m high. When the tide picked up, it began to drift to a point  2km from the original launch point.