There's no oil in Southwark

December 6, 2009 7:17 AM

So, what is this orange platform on the Thames?

We noticed this rig east of Tower Bridge a few weeks ago and now it's set up to the west. Makes a lot of noise some of the time. Anyone know what it's for?

posted by qwip to Grab Bag (5 answers total)

Best answer: Maybe a drill for geotechnical survey purposes - here's a description of one rig used for that at the Thames Gateway but can't find a picture.
posted by Abiezer at 7:48 AM on December 6, 2009

Some digging around (via and via) leads me to believe that this should be listed somewhere in the Port of London Authority Notices to Mariners, but I can't seem to find it.
posted by ClarissaWAM at 8:17 AM on December 6, 2009

Abiezer has it, they'll be doing sediment sampling. Worked offshore for 6 years, that's no oil rig, but I have seen this size equipment whilst at Uni.
posted by arcticseal at 8:28 AM on December 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Best answer: It's for Thames Water's sewage tunnels
posted by milkrate at 8:38 AM on December 6, 2009

Response by poster: That was quick. Thanks for the link, milkrate.

They move the rig quite quickly when it's being relocated. Left for a bit of a walkabout around 17:00 and by the time we came back at 22:00 it was gone. Just noticed yesterday that it's now upstream a bit. With the tidal swings of the Thames, it looked like it was in danger of flooding over before it was moved a few weeks ago. I'll have to look into how it's engineered.
posted by qwip at 8:53 AM on December 6, 2009