Bourbon’s AHTS ‘Bourbon Dolphin’ has sunk claiming eight lives

The Bourbon Dolphin accident occurred last Thursday evening while the ship, a DP 2 Anchor Handling Tug Supply Vessel, was on operations 75 nautical miles North West of the Shetland Islands with 15 people on board.

Today, at 9:16 pm Local Time, the vessel sunk and is lying at 3,600 feet.

SMIT Salvage started salvage operations in the middle of the day on April 15th after a complete survey of the situation. The Salvage Team was composed of 2 tugs with crew and material, 4 specialized divers and one Salvage Master in charge of the operations.

The ship was first disconnected from the rig, and as the weather conditions became bad (25 knot south-westerly wind and 4 meter high waves), it became destabilized and then sunk before towage was possible.

For the time being, most of the salavage equipment has left the zone, except for one tug that remains for the moment on the zone to monitor the current situation.

As rightly noted by Gerald Baron, Bourbon is trying very hard to communicate openly about this crisis. They have set up an online emergency page to keep all parties informed, providing relevant facts and personal statements.