Bourbon Dolphin Capsized In The North Sea - Update: Oil Rig Evacuated

Looking at the design of the ship, I can certainly see how this happened.



Center of balance for the ship is in the base of the first deck, nearer the bow than mid section.

Winch is above the center of balance by about one deck.

The rudder is almost perfectly in the mirror placement of the upper decks, using the center of balance as the mirror plane.

1. Ship is already top heavy.
2. Rudder design shows potential to 'shunt' the hull in a direction before the center of balance can follow.
3. Winch is above the center of balance.
... The rudder was positioned to rotate the ship to starboard, rolling the mass of the hull to port temporarily. This combined with a tension on the 'anchor chain' attached to the winch rotated the decks mass to starboard.
The mass of the center of the upper decks was thrown starboard of the center of balance, while the bouyancy of the hull was thrown port of the center of balance. Deck comes down, hull goes up... capsize.

I don't know if the function of the ship required such mass to be in the upper decks, or if they were trying to save space... but it was a bad idea. And the rudder shouldn't have been designed so low, it needs to shift the center of balance, not the hull itself.

Maybe if I could speak to the original engineers I could get a reason as to why these oddities were placed into the ships design... maybe they have a good reason... but those oddities are definately the catalyst to the capsize.

Today started some hearings in the Bourbon Dolphin inquiry. The owners of Bourbon Dolphin have asked for these hearings to be made "secret", and without the public and the press present. However, the press/public have not (yet) been banned from this event. They are going to ask questions about the accident, to the survivors and other keypersons.

One of the questions is how and why Bourbon Dolphin became the main ship in the failed operation, when she was only supposed to be assisting.


VG: «Bourbon Dolphin»-utspørring for åpne dører (in norwegian...)

iMarkedet: Bourbon Dolphin-forliset kan gi markedseffekter (in norwegian...)

A Series of "Unfortunate Circumstances"

A report was presented today. No single factor was behind the accident.


'No single factor' behind fatal vessel accident

The previous link also had a picture of the Norwegian victims.



Photo: Politiet/Scanpix

Eight persons were killed when the Bourbon Dolphin capsized during an anchor handling operation last year. A Danish crew member died in addition to the victims pictured here.

Bourbon Dolphin Commission Blames Mishaps For Deadly Accident (from The Herald )

The owners of Bourbon Dolphin has to pay a 5 million Nkr fine. The reason is that the Captain was not given enough time to get to know the ship before the fatal mission. This is breaking news in Norway right now.


Millionbot etter Bourbon Dolphin-ulykken (in Norwegian)

Hope's and prayers to those injured and or killed and their families.

Just one stupid question, if the ship is tied to the rig and risks sinking the rig, why not cut the ship lose??? I am sure it is a far less valuable loss to lose a ship than an oil rig.

Here is how the accident happened: