Nowadays it’s hard to imagine undertaking a major offshore construction project without the support of GPS and other digital technologies to design, build, and place subsea pipeline systems. But more than 50 years ago, this was exactly the type of project Joe Pikas was faced with as a young pipeliner fresh out of college. In 1967, two years before man first walked on the moon, he was involved with constructing a 33-mile pipeline crossing underwater from Morgan, New Jersey, to Long Beach, New York – through the Lower New York Bay. The line was to cross five shipping channels and major overseas telephone and telegraph links to Europe. Read his account of how his team overcame an array of challenges without the advantages afforded by today’s technological progressions and learn about the differences between how engineering goals were met in the past, and how companies such as Technical Toolboxes are leading transformation in the pipeline space today.
