Crew Baskets

In the Offshore, the crew changes normally take place by helicopter. But what if your chopper didn't show up due to fog? You have to rely the old-fashioned way of crew changing; by vessel. But how to get from a cranebarge deck to a vessel more than 30 meters lower? The answer is: by crewbasket. The nightmare of all Safety departments . Crewbaskets come in two types; the soft version and the rigid version. The first one is the most used one. Basically a floating ring where four people can stand on with a pyramid like fishnet construction connected to the ring and the cranewire. The problem is that this fishnet pyramid collapses when the crane wire comes slack with the up and down movement of the vessel. Only experienced offshore workers know exactly where to grab the lines and how to hold it. If you are doing it wrong, it can be quite an adventure, that is true. The rigid version is the Esvagt basket like you see on the picture. A lot easier and in my opinion also a lot safer, especially for inexperienced crew members.