WorldWide Drilling Resource

35 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® JULY 2016 The Little Rig that Could by Jeff Winkowski, New Jersey Licensed Master Well Driller Back in 1995, I was working for an Environmental Company. We also drilled domestic and irrigation wells. The business was located out of Forked River. Right after the new year, my employer approached me and asked if I would be interested in drilling 15 cathodic protection wells in Virginia. He said he had landed a job with an engineering company and the wells were to be drilled on the Norfolk Naval base. Each borehole was to be six inches by 100 feet deep, no casing. I wasn’t sure at first because I had already bought a Mayhew 500 drill rig and tanker truck, and was planning on quitting and going into business for myself. My employer had no idea I was about to leave, but it was wintertime, the job sounded interesting, and I wanted the experience. So I put my plans on hold for a month. I asked Gil, my helper, if he was willing to go to Norfolk and see what this was all about. He just laughed at me and said, “Do you really think this junk will even make it out of New Jersey?” He had a good point as the rig was a 1966 Ford 600 with a worn-out gas engine and a 66 Mayhew 500. The rig drilled fine, but the truck didn’t have any heat or power steering, and a hole in the passenger floorboard. Gil was a really good helper, and an excellent mechanic. We got prepared and set out the next Saturday morning. The plan was to take the parkway south and get on the Cape May Ferry. We made it to Cape May and the driveshaft fell out of the tank truck. We were stranded on the parkway (remember this was pre cell phones). I can’t remember how, but we eventually made a call to the office. They got us towed to a place to get the driveshaft fixed. Gil and I stayed at a motor lodge that night and were up early the next morning to get the ferry. It was the coldest day of winter and driving that rig was brutal. I had cov- eralls, a hooded sweatshirt, and gloves on, and it wasn’t enough. I froze my butt off. After a long drive down Route 13, we got to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Everything was fine and the trucks were running good; but that didn’t last. When we got in the tunnel, I was keeping up with the traffic, but as soon as the tunnel went to an in- cline, that old truck didn’t like it. It slowed to a crawl and started backfiring. I was saying to myself, “Come on, you got to be kidding,” willing the truck to keep moving. Ten, maybe 20 miles per hour was all I could get, and there was nowhere to pull over. I kept thinking, “Don’t stall out.” Finally, we got out of the tunnel, the road leveled off, and I picked up speed. We made it to the hotel and met the crew from the engineering company. After we introduced ourselves, one of the guys said, “What a piece of junk (referring to the Mayhew). How are you going to get any boreholes drilled with that?” The year before, a couple of guys from our company had been there with a Chicago Pneumatic 650. It might have looked impressive, but the air didn’t work, it would only drill mud rotary, and I refused to drill with it. I proceeded to tell them this old Mayhew would outdrill that big air rig, and it would take me less than an hour to drill 100 feet or I would buy drinks that night. Well, they thought I was crazy and were confident I would be buying the drinks. The next day, we set up our little rig; it looked small next to the cranes the Navy had. There were huge cranes all over the place. I saw submarines in dry docks that looked like toys with ants crawling all over them, and flashes of welding light sparkling off the dark hulls. It was truly amazing. My rig had a 25-foot tower, a stationary lock top rotary table, and a 5x6 mud pump. We started to drill; the formation was soft. It was a mix of shells and black sand from 0 to 100 feet. I drilled the hole in 45 minutes, and we were ready to set the anodes down the borehole. Once that was done I said, “Let’s start the next hole.” They said they weren’t ready; it took the other guys a full day to drill one hole. My response was, “You’re not laughing at this old rig now, are you?” Needless to say, I didn’t have to buy drinks. We finished the 15 wells in 2 weeks. The Navy usually only let us drill one borehole a day. They had their schedule, and no one was going to change it; but it was truly a memorable experience. This article originally appeared in the New Jersey Ground Water Association’s 2016 Second Quarter Newsletter. It was reprinted with permission from Jeff Winkowski and the association.