Quotes from Deep / Surface

“If you had to work on cold steel – welders crawling or kneeling on it, for example – it was pretty rough. But people get used to anything. Those who were used to working outdoors in the yard didn’t even want to go inside the hall, even though the conditions there were warmer and better. Inside there was no wind.”
“On the first days it never even occurred to me to lean on the railings, but after a couple of weeks you’d already find yourself hanging on with one hand, working underneath the rig.”
“The work environment could be smoky at times, windy at others. Let’s say it was variable – it depended on the task. Sometimes we worked inside the hall, sometimes under the open sky, sometimes inside a tank. There was a lot of variety. In a way it was nice that the surroundings changed.”
“In the break rooms we had a table, chairs and coat racks. And at that time there were no smoking bans – ten to fifteen people at a table and about 95% smoked. You breathed smoke whether you smoked or not.”
“When a SPAR was completed and the transport vessel came to fetch it, we held a ‘Sail Away’ party. Some called it a pig roast, because we grilled whole pigs and other food. They were for the whole staff. People really liked them – it created motivation when everyone, including the workers, got something, not just the office staff.”
“The French said about the first rig that ‘kids can’t build rigs.’ We were all really young. It was all learning, because nothing like it had ever been done before – not in Finland or anywhere in the Nordic countries. The second rig was already much easier.”

“I worked in the drawing office. My first task was to calculate how much time different work phases would take. We planned and estimated how much design time was needed for each part.”
“Rauma-Repola had decided to establish Offshore Engineering because Russia asked whether we could build ships and production systems for the Arctic Ocean – a complete delivery, including all subsea and seabed equipment. We studied the possibilities: deep waters, cold waters, ice and icebergs – and what to do about them.”
“The construction method for a jack-up was actually invented by the Mäntyluoto engineers: first the deck was assembled on land, then the gear systems, and after that sections of the legs were lowered down from above. We raised the deck and then completed the rest of the legs from below. We made use of our own construction methods.”
“Back then everyone had a big drawing board. That’s all in the past – then computers arrived. On the board you attached tracing paper and drew with felt-tip pens. In installation design we made quick sketches, sometimes even freehand, and even those were perfectly clear. It wasn’t sensible to spend too much time drawing if you could get it done quickly.”
“The work was interesting. These were products that weren’t made in many places in the world. Offshore drilling rigs were challenging: they were completed, equipment and systems installed, sea trials carried out, and then they were handed over to the client.”

“In the old days we took pay packets to the halls – there was a box with all the cash. There was no guard, no gatekeeper, nobody watching.”
“I’ve always liked my job. It was really my lifeline. I worked at the switchboard and gladly went to work in the morning and happily went home. I never had any problems.”
“We calculated everything by hand. And you really learned a lot doing manual calculations. And then the computer came – well, that was something!”

“We knew the people. That made the work easy and meaningful.”
“We talked with everyone, and everyone addressed each other informally, from top to bottom, and they did the same with us. Like I say, we were all eating the same crispbread.”
“There were three ships and two drilling rigs being finished, five projects going on, 1,500 employees and the same number of subcontractors in a small area. Something happened all the time – debris was taken out of someone’s eye several times a day, someone got a finger pinched, someone had a cut, and sometimes something more difficult requiring first aid. The first five or six years were incredibly busy.”
“In the waiting room you already had about ten people sitting in a queue, and you had to start improvising – what do we do now? But it got going. It was a dramatic start.”
“Our work was so varied that I couldn’t imagine having done anything else.”
“I have to say I really enjoyed the work, because no two days were the same. And the community – we were out there at the edge of the world in a way, and that shared feeling connected people. And the colleagues were such that if they’d been the wrong kind, I wouldn’t have stayed twenty years in the same job.”
“Even though the law didn’t require it, we still did regular check-ups – every five years for those under 50, every three years for those over 50, plus lab tests. They were done on company time. Our occupational health work was strong – we knew how to explain the benefits and why it mattered. We were able to work and develop things in a positive spirit.”

“No big complaints – there could be smoke and fumes, and attention to ventilation and respiratory protection only came later. There was smoke enough for everyone.”
“In the early days you only had your own trainers on your feet, but pretty quickly safety boots were introduced.”
“I came to Mäntyluoto in 1981, and I remember that in the early 1980s one person in the personnel office was handling accident reports all the time.”
“Piecework led to shortcuts. Everyone was in a hurry, of course. That was probably the biggest cause of risk-taking. Things changed a lot when the ownership changed – we were put under strict discipline, which was good in the end.”
“Rig trials meant long hours without sleep. Often we worked 16 hours, 8 hours off. That 8 hours was on call. It wasn’t too bad – the pay, daily allowances and compensation were good, and there was food also.”
“From what I saw from 1981 to 2000, they invested in safety. They had Finland’s first full-time safety representative. There was a safety manager, a plant fire brigade, fire watch, security services – everything that didn’t really exist elsewhere at that scale yet.”
“The Norwegians brought the whole safety mindset. It was very good. When the first Glomar Arctic rigs were being built, it was more or less controlled chaos – electrical cables, gas hoses, water hoses all over the place. The Norwegians were strict: everything had to be in order. Thanks to them, safety improved significantly at Mäntyluoto.”

“I worked more with the Americans. With the Russians I was involved when we inspected valves and got them approved. They were civilised and professional – no problems at all.”
“The Mäntyluoto Metalworkers’ Union organised a trip to Leningrad in December 1984. Already in early November came the announcement: ‘Spend Independence Day in Leningrad.’ The trip included sightseeing and a visit to the Nevsky Works. We left from the Pori bus station on a Lyttylä bus. The badge we got there has been lost over the years.”
“There were big, big parties. I remember from Soviet times, when we built drilling ships and a couple of jack-ups and a pipelayer vessel for Sudoimport. When the flag-changing ceremony took place, we had a party on the ship. The crew was there, the Soviets, and then we had our people. And in Soviet fashion at the time, vodka was served quite generously.”
“There were negotiation meetings almost weekly in Moscow. Väiski (director Väinö Lassila) always had a couple of boxes of Finnish lozenges in his briefcase, which he readily offered to Sofia (the Soviet chief negotiator Sofia V. Ljankhterova).”

Quotes from Deep / Surface

World Class Marine Engineering

From the Drawing Board to the Offshore Rig

The Women of the Mäntyluoto Office

There Was Always Something Happening – Occupational Health Alongside the Workers

There Was No Shortage of Smoke – Challenges of Workplace Safety

Bilateral Trade with the Soviet Union