Island Offshore’s vessel to support Titanic dive

Offshore vessel owners supporting the oil and gas industry have been hit hard by the lack of demand for their services caused by the oil industry’s downcycle and the oversupply of tonnage.

Thus, the OSV players have started looking into other sectors such as renewables and fisheries to find work for their vessels.

Norway’s Island Offshore, offshore vessel owner dealing mainly with the offshore oil and gas industry, is one such owner.

The company on Thursday revealed it has found work for its Island Crown offshore support vessel. Since its delivery in 2013, the vessel has performed walk- to-work and accommodation duties at both oil & gas, and wind installations.

Now, the vessel is set to “dive into” another adventure, not oil, not gas, not wind, but the Titanic.

Island Offshore has entered into an agreement with OceanGate Expeditions for the use of Island Crown as support vessel during the first manned submersible expedition to the wreck of the RMS Titanic since 2005.

The vessel is 96.8 metres long and 20 metres wide with accommodation for 100 persons on board. The Island Crown is equipped with a gang way system, subsea
crane, a helideck, large tank capacity and holds a deck cargo area of 561m2.

The assignment will start in May 2018 and will have a duration of 10 weeks for Island Crown. The vessel will depart from St. John’s, Newfoundland, and will act as accommodation and dive support ship for the expedition team throughout the expedition.

According to Island Offshore, the Island Crown has just finished a month-long walk-to-work job for Bluestream at Nordsee One Wind Park and just changed client this week to Van Oord, still on the same wind farm. The vessel has secured additional work until the end of September.

Offshore Energy Today Staff