So the questions is are there enough skimmers out there doing the job or do we need more. I would think we need all we can get.
Parley Baer, you’ve hit the nail on the head. The fact is, however, that no one is going to operate a workboat until they can get paid to do so. I think that people have this idea that we’ve got the ability to vacuum up every drop of oil out there- even when we’ve got the equipment to do the job, response vessels are exceptionally unreliable and inefficient at what they do... though they’re all we’ve got.
For some odd reason, everyone assumes that the Europeans have magic boats that can take in oil and expel sunshine and farts- the dutch have some good stuff, SMIT, especially, but since they’ve got an American branch, that technology is already here.
Anyways, I don’t want to sound like an apologist- I’m pretty sure that there aren’t too many other actual tanker captains who comment here, so I thought I’d post something based on what’s really happening, as opposed to the excited shit flinging that sometimes happens here.