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North Sea claims Bourbon Dolphin



By Upstream staff 

Photo by SCANPIX


The anchor handling tug supply vessel Bourbon Dolphin, which capsized while working at the Rosebank field off Shetland last week, has sunk.

The Bourbon Dolphin overturned on Thursday. Coastguards confirmed the vessel sank at 2115 BST last night. The water depth at Rosebank is about 1100 metres. Three of the 15-man crew are dead, five are still missing, presumed drowned. Seven survived.

Norwegian daily Aftenposten said in a report this morning that the anchor chain connecting the AHTS vessel to the semi-submersible drilling rig Transocean Rather had been disconnected.

The Bourbon Dolphin was then secured to the rescue ship Olympic Hercules and was due to be towed to Collafirth.

The salvage operation was being carried out in bad weather - waves in the area reached 2.5 metres at the time, with heavy, gusting winds.

Describing the ship as "very unstable", Shetland Coastguard watch manager Neil Cumming said: "It was released from a rig yesterday and slowly it began to sink."

A spokeswoman for salvage company Smit Salvage told the newspaper: "We do not know exactly what happened, but believe that bad weather played a role."

The Aftenposten report said that it may be possible to salvage the vessel, but the operation is likely to be difficult and depends on how the ship lies on the seabed and whether it was damaged when it sank.

The Norwegian authorities, Bourbon Offshore Norway and the company's insurers will decide whether to try to salvage the AHTS vessel. However, a BBC report published this afternoon said it looked increasingly unlikely that the vessel would be salvaged. The report did not cite sources.

Yesterday, survivors of the tragedy and relatives of the dead crew members gathered at a beach in Lerwick for a memorial service before flying over the upturned ship, the BBC said.

Three bodies have so far been recovered, but their identities have not been released.

The five missing men are presumed dead, and it is thought their bodies may still be inside the boat.

Bourbon Offshore released the names of the dead and missing crew members. They are 14-year-old David Remoy, Oddne Arve Remoy, 44, Ronny Emblem, 25, Bjarte Grimstad, 37, Soren Kroer, 27, Frank Nygaard, 42, Kjetil Rune Vaage, 31, and Tor Karl Sando, 54.

The police investigation has been handed over to a Norwegian government commission set up to look into the incident.

The Norwegian Marine Commission inquiry could report findings as early as the beginning of next week.


Monday, 16 April, 2007, 04:42 GMT  | last updated: Monday, 16 April, 2007, 12:21 GMT

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