The deepwater jet sled was first developed to be used in laying and burying pipelines in ocean depths up to 1000 feet in Norwegian waters. Such ocean depths required a paradigm change in jet sled design in order to dig the trenches and lay the pipeline. The BC-500 pipe-bury jet sled was designed in 1972 for Santa Fe International, Inc. and was first operational to transport oil from the Ekofisk Oil Field to a refinery 300 miles away.
This paper presents an overview about the BC-500 jet sled as a new design concept for Santa Fe International, Inc. The design includes an eductor system within the jet sled instead of the air pressure designs which were in use in the waters up to 50 feet in the Gulf of Mexico. The conceptual design drawings were submitted to Texas A&M University to build a scale model to prove the feasibility of the eductor system for trenching. Time was a critical factor, to support Santa Fe International in transportation of oil from the newly found Ekofisk oil field for production in 1973.
