scope:

INTRODUCTION

In 1971 the JBF Scientific Corporation presented to the American Petroleum Institute a concept for utilizing a JBF DIP oil recovery system to pick up spilled oil and sorbents in an at - sea environment. At that time, JBF had completed a research and development program that had resulted in oil skimming equipment that was effective with both sorbents and oil. Moreover, tests indicated that the DIP principle, when applied to hardware of suitable design, should also be effective in the presence of waves.

From its own work and from discussions with others familiar with operations at sea, JBF had concluded that an at - sea oil collection operation would be more practical if the oil concentration and collection system were to function unmanned. That is , the support vessel would be used simply to transport the unit to the spill site and to provide on-board remote control and oil-storage capacity during the harvesting operation.

JBF incorporated these ideas into a proposed program which was presented to the API. After thorough discussions and review, the API agreed to support a demonstration project.

Accordingly, in April, 1972, the API established a project to design and demonstrate a JBF DIP for the recovery of oil and oil-soaked sorbents at sea. The elements of the project included the design, construction, and at - sea demonstration and testing of a mechanical spilledoil recovery system provided with both local and remote controls. In addition, it was also stipulated that materials and construction be in accordance with the regulations of the cognizant agencies.

Because oil skimmers may carry flammable liquids in bulk quantities (defined by the Coast Guard as 110 gals . ) , their design and construction a r e subject to the "Rules and Regulations for Tank Vessels, "Subchapter A Title 46, Code of Federal Regulations. It was therefore necessary for the plans of the DIP 4001 to be reviewed and approved and for the vessel to be inspected by the Coast Guard during construction. Confornning to these regulations proved to be one of the significant influences upon the details of design and construction.