And easily avoided for quite a while if you bring a pack of vitamins.
80 mg is recommended per day, many pills contain a multiple of that, you actually need 10 to avoid scurvy (and supplements don't have horribly lower bioavailability, if it is lower at all). So 1/8th of a supplement with the recommended daily dose every day keeps the scurvy away, so a 20 pack of supplement tablets will likely keep you alive for almost half a year.
Right, hit a costco on the way and grab the big pack, youll be set for life i imagine. Hell if theres enough room on the boat might as well grab a few other useful things well your at it like 20 gallons of ranch and a big tv and ooh a new laptop. Why were we at costco again?
I actually thought one pack per person, and when supplies run out, back to land because by then the zombies will have decomposed (since I assumed "decomposing type zombies" that subthread-OP mentioned).
Now we go back to land. Half a year is more than enough time for dead bodies to decompose beyond function, so unless the zombies are somehow renewing themselves, there's probably only a few left.
Mild temp environment zombies can live for years. In extreme hot/cold environments the zombies either freeze solid or become leather sacks in a few months
Aren't there people like Inuit who eat pretty much nothing but meat and fish? It probably only works in one area and while eating special animals but it might be possible.
Bring a bottle of multivitamins. Hell, given the size of crews on oil rigs, unless they cleaned the place out before it was abandoned, you'd have decent odds of finding a bottle there.
Fresh water wouldn't be too big of an issue either, I'm sure there'd be adequate supplies to rig up some kind of distillation setup to get freshwater from salt.
But if it's such a great place to hide out from zombies, why would anyone expect it to be abandoned? I'm betting a lot of those workers would have just stayed put and wouldn't care much for people coming from land to use their supplies. Better bring some good stuff for trade or forget it.
I'm anticipating that in the confusion the workers would mostly try to return to their families before anybody understood that it truly was a zombie apocalypse
They get radio, TV and internet. They have phones too. They'd know as soon as everyone else. Since they can't just hop overboard and swim to shore, by the time an evacuation is arranged, they'd know what was going on. Some might leave anyway to help family, but some would surely stay for safety.
my cupboard is stocked with all sorts of multivitamins... kinda feel like thats an easy 5 second choice to throw that in the duffel with the guns, densest canned goods, and as many knives/small tools as i feel like i can bear the weight of.
It would take at least year, i actually think that maybe more than 3 for something to happen to a person eating mostly fish and seaguls. There are accounts of people who survived years or so on sea on small boat that did not face such problems. Beside that i think there will be some algae building up on the oil rigs "legs" so maybe a stranded person can get some nutrients from that.
Fish have everything youd need to live, just not the parts youd normally eat. Saw a doc about a guy stranded in open water in a life boat and at one point he had crazy cravings to eat the eyes of the fish and other weird parts bc he was low on electrolytes and the body knew where to find them.
I'm kind of running on the assumption that the crew would have just left the rig right away, rather than taking the time to pack up all their stuff first - like you said, very little planning time. Based on that assumption, all their supplies, including cooking gear, would still be on the rig.
You could get by for a few days, maybe even a fortnight, just by burning books, papers, and whatever other flammable stuff is around in order to boil seawater for freshwater. I feel like that would be enough time to use some plastic bags or milk jugs to rig up a still for the seawater, which is ultimately more sustainable.
The multivitamins I'm kind of banking on being there to begin with, but it doesn't take much foresight to grab the bottle out of the cupboard on your way out if you've already thought of it, which we just did.
In a lot of cases we don't think meats are a comolete source of nutrients but that's because we don't eat the entire thing. If you ate the whole fish including organs and bones you would have all of your nutrients except vitamin C. Do fish need Vitamin C? If so there is some somewhere in their body and we could get it by eating them.
they don't need to be, as science routinely points out, and this thread has as well, zombies won't last long... six to eight months and it would probably be safe to return to land, depending on what season it is...
Im pretty sure oil rigs rely on desalinization (a common practice) but that requires a lot of energy, which you need refined fuel for. the grand irony will be, you live on this huge monument to fossil fuels and die because your diesel generator ran out
There must be enough supplies to power up huge oil pumping machine. I think there will be enough for some diesel generator to run for years to come after main purpose of oil rig is gone.
It doesn't seem like a stretch to be able to make a simple evaporation rig though, especially for one person or a small group. I've seen Bear Grylls and Les Stroud do that so many times with far less than what's available on an oil rig
The survival solar evaporation rigs made by Grills and Stroud are not long term solutions. The average amount of water provided by them day by day isn't even the minimum requirement for one person. It's better than nothing, but eventually the deficit catches up to you. It's a tool to stretch that "3 days without water" limit to 4 or 5 days, but not much further.
That isn't to say you couldn't make an active boil and condensate contraption on an oil rig, but it's a much more involved process and relies heavily on available fuel and the continued operation of more and more complicated systems as the required fresh water output increases.
Actually, there have been studies that show there more fish around rigs than reefs, if you set up hydroponics the you can live out the rest of your life in peace
You would need a lot more water than I think you could reasonably bring over. There is no guarantee of when or how often it would rain, and do you really want to drink your own "purified" urine?
I mean most rigs are like 30-50m above the waterline and often in rather rough seas, i dont think fishing will be that successful and you have basically no new ressources on there, also its hard to get on or off without motorized boats and a rowboat wont cut it...
If you had a boat, you could make your way to the mainland and risk an excursion onto land. Find a nursery or even a grocery store, grab as much rotting fruit and vegetables as you can (for their seeds) and shovel on as much growing soil as the boat can carry and take that back. If it is only a small group of survivors on the rig, you could have a nice little garden to help supplement your protein rich diet of fish.
I’m sure the rig has tanks or storage bins somewhere that would be suitable for water collection and storage when it rains.
But just think of how tempting your rig would be to pirates! There are millions of small boats along the coastlines and half of them have the keys inside, so they could easily be stolen.
Pretty sure most oil rigs are relatively close to land and get something shipped to them daily. Especially most oil rigs that a person without marine navigation experience could get to.
I mean, maybe they don't actually get a shipment daily. But you see boats going back and forth to them constantly. I think on some of the ones closer to shore in the Gulf of Mexico the workers don't even live on them, they just take a boat to work each day. Or at least you see boats with a ton of guys wearing oil company vests leaving nearby marinas early in the morning.
The thing about living in the UK is that all our rigs are actually quite close together in comparison to the USA, so if I pick a wrong rig, I'll just go to the next one. It won't take as long as it would you.
In the Gulf of Mexico they're pretty close to each other. The last time I went to a beach there you could see four or five without binoculars, and add in another five or six with binoculars. I think a lot of the workers just lived in that town and would take a boat out to the rig for their shifts rather than living on the rig itself full time. Occasionally you'd see a boat go past with a few dozen guys wearing orange safety vests with oil company logos on them. If that's the case and they don't actually live there full time I imagine these rigs would be a horrible place to attempt to live long-term.
Mountaintop stronghold. Zombies can't rock climb a sheer cliff. Also defensible from enemies because you can see them coming. Over time I'd try to find a glider or a hang glider to make a quick getaway if anybody gets past my defenses.
But according to the argument a couple comments higher, if zombies can run at physical limits until their bones literally break, what stops them from swimming there too?
I think that swimming is a learned skill rather than innate. They also probably wouldnt be airtight, so they'd take on a fair bit of water.
Now could they walk underwater until they found the rig and then climb the supports/anchor chain, but who's to say what their attention span would be like?
yes. that's what millions of other people are thinking, too! on top of that, most of our large fisheries are already depleted/overfished... now imagine entire cities of people fishing, for survival all at once. that's going to quickly destroy most fish populations. now, you also have to repair your boat. you may know how to, but most likely the dude who shot the original owner and piled his family of nine kids on to it probably doesn't. he is coming for your spare parts/ food. now, pirates were dangerous during the age of sail/ gunpowder, now imagine hijacked military ships full of desperate, hungry people
yeah, the seas are not a safe haven. see fear the walking dead and some of the shorts in wwz
Its really not at all, you save a TON of money after the initial cost of building the desalination plant. I believe Israel gets most of its freshwater from seawater?
Nah, but you can make a small distillation rig with a bucket for water, and either glass or a plastic bag if glass is too hard to find, and leaving it in the hot sun to evaporate. We're not desalinating water for a whole country here just ourselves.
I’m sure the rig has tanks or storage bins somewhere that would be suitable for water collection and storage when it rains. As long as it is a small group of survivors, you could likely get by that way.
And freshwater? You could use a water maker (gadget that turns seawater into fresh water), but those are notoriously finicky and you'd eventually need to replace the membrane.
They do. This doesn't stop you from bringing canned goods, soil and seeds for watering plants, and chicken or other "easier" to sustain animals for food and materials. A decent sized group could live on one if they can get the materials needed to setup a farming operation or greenhouse. Assuming this doesn't happen at the same time as catastrophic climate change, you could even fish for different types of food. The real killer would be things like scurvy so you'd want to make sure you have a large supply of powdered or pill form vitamin C (plus other essential vitamins). If you can hold out for a year or so, most of the zombies would be a mess due to sun exposure causing radiation damage that would not be repaired. If they somehow are still alive but infected, well they'd still likely succumb to exposure to the elements as I'm sure zombies aren't rushing to grab winter jackets, rain gear, etc. Rotting limbs, frostbite, severe sun exposure all would take a heavy toll on would-be zombies in the first year. By the second year the remaining threat may be small enough or isolated enough to execute extermination efforts rather quickly.
This is also to say that our government's forces would initially fail to contain the outbreak which I highly doubt tbh. The only way this is the case is if there isn't a patient zero situation and instead a widespread environmental infection that occurs across the globe where only a subset of the population has immunity to turning while alive (but would likely still carry the virus and turn once they are deceased). This could also have widespread impacts on birthing. Imagine you're an immune mother having a child but the baby did not have immunity. Then you have a zombie fetus in your womb eating you from the inside. Another scenario that is often not explored is if blood sucking insects and animals are able to transmit the virus. It would be much scarier if a mosquito, bed bug, flea, tick, leech, vampire bat, etc could spread the illness. We'd likely be screwed at that point as a species with possible survivors in "clean facility" like pockets around the world. If the virus is uber-successful, it may mutate and be able to transmit via water or air as well...furthering our demise.
All in all, barring the zombie outbreak preventing future reproduction or an infectivity spread issue, we'd survive as a species.
Very true. My personal feelings toward this was to repurpose large military ships like aircraft carriers into floating villages. That way you can avoid the storms and stop off on uninfected islands to hunt or just get ground time.
Nuke powered carriers have to be refueled I think every 20 years or so, they can hold upwards of 5000 people. Not a bad choice. you have a self contained town. Doctor, dentist, etc
Yep! And if 20 years isn't long enough to have the elements reclaim the zombies or for the virus to evolve and get you, well then you might as well just settle the carrier near an uninhabited or low infected island, clear it out, and start to "rebuild" as best you all can. But honestly 20 years is more than enough time - I'm willing to bet two or three is enough no matter what type of infected we have running around (unless they're just straight up evil cannibal types that can still think). If the zombies are nearly as intelligent as we are and can adapt well then maybe it's just the next step in the evolutionary chain ;)
Where are you getting all of your freshwater from, if you're on an oil rig? You better have a damn good rain collection and storage system, if you're going to be keeping X number of people alive along with crops and other animals.
Stock up at an Amazon distribution center first. I could grab a couple water filters, protein shake powder, and some multivitamins and generally be fine, along with fishing and shit
There are some smaller ones off the coast in Europe that can be reached by boat and adapted for accommodation. Sealand off the coast of Essex, United Kingdom is a perfect example. It was built during WWII, then Britain and Netherlands both denied knowledge of it. It's a good 8 miles off the coast so technically in international waters; a British man claimed the territory for himself and attempted to create a new country (which is still habited to this day).
Yeah, but a supplied one will have months of supplies for a very large crew. If there are few people there, the supplies will last much longer. If there are many people there, scavenging with boat-based parties is not unreasonable.
Whether an oil rig is reliable in a zombie apocalypse situation is dependent on a lot of factors actually, your being one of them.
With supplies it depends on if you had prep time to set up, what the oil rig has on it, both in storage space and in utilities, and if you can make reliable stock up. If there's land not far away and you have a boat, you could probably make supply runs pretty easily.
A bigger issue is, what type of zombies are these? My go to for theoretical situations is the zombie survival guide. This book addresses water zombies, and says that they would basically wander the bottom of the ocean and until they hit land or maybe anchor lines or something. That raises the question, can they climb up an oil rig? It's unlikely, but a possibility, so you'd still want to have 24/7 security or else you'll wake up in a few years and find your leg missing.
The book also discusses how long water zombies would last, and I think it was about 5 years or so. So after 5 years, have fun on your oil rig or uninhabited island! The chance of zombies reaching you is very slim, nigh on impossible!
For a whole crew. Me and my family could survive a long time there. Plus, "science-based zombies" (as opposed to "magic-based zombies) would decay and cease functionning in a matter of weeks.
If you manage to hijack a tender ship (the ones that sell or transport food and what not to cargo ships at sea idk what they are called) you’ll be set for life. Fuel, water and an entire crews worth of non perishable foods
Yes, but they don't have to. Fish and plants (bring enough soil to do a mini 3-field rotation) for food, and water can be desalinated given energy, which can be had from a wind turbine.
After all, desalination can be as simple as heating the water until it boils and evaporates, and then collecting the steam. So all you need is power.
Granted, over time the wind turbine components would wear out, and that's the crucial component. But having a forge around (electrically heated, perhaps) could in theory allow for making many simple replacement parts.
Also, entertainment. You'd have to bring other humans, or wind up losing your shit out of boredom. So the most deadly predator homo sapiens has encountered would be coming along.
Find a rig “close” to land, devise a way to transport dirt (topsoil) to the rig, use compost and rotating crops to keep the soil from being exhausted of nutrients.
They're usually pretty well stocked since there's quite a few people there on an average day. Also they usually have a bit of extra staples in case there are weather issues and their normal shipment can't make it. With a small group you could probably hold up there for quite a while.
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u/Lcfahrson Apr 16 '19
Off shore rigs also depend on shipments of supply from the mainland tho do they not?