SALVAGE experts were yesterday drawing up plans to tow to shore the oil rig support vessel that capsized in the Atlantic.

Eight lives were lost in the accident in calm seas off Shetland last Thursday and some of the bodies are believed still to be inside the ship.

The dead included the Norwegian skipper of the Bourbon Dolphin and his 14-year-old son, who was on the bridge with him as part of a work experience assignment.

The seven crew members who escaped told their rescuers that the ship overturned while preparing to drop the last of eight anchors for drilling rig Transocean Rather.

Three bodies have been recovered, but five, including Oddne Remoy, 44, the skipper, and his son David are still missing.

Trond Myklebust, director of Bourbon Offshore, the ship’s owner, said his company had begun an inquiry, including checking who was at the helm when the ship turned over.

“I am sure the investigation will give us information about that,” he said.

The company’s inquiry is running alongside an official investigation by the Norwegian maritime directorate. “We will investigate this and launch a thorough review of the causes,” said Dag Terje Andersen, Norway’s trade and industry minister.

The wreck of the ship has been explored by navy divers, who found nothing, and yesterday the company Smit Salvage was at the boat’s location, trying to recover an anchor chain seen as key to the investigation.

The vessel was carrying out a routine operation laying an anchor used to stabilise the rig when the accident happened. Investigators believe the anchor chain, weighing up to 300 tons, may have jumped out of its guides and run along the side of the vessel, pulling it over.

Workers on board said they saw the 250ft ship manoeuvring the anchor into position before making a sudden sharp turn. The chain between the anchor and the rig was seen to tighten and run up the side of the ship, forcing it onto its side. Minutes later it capsized with the anchor chain still in place running back to the rig.

Tore Hoifodt, director of information for the vessel’s insurance company Veritas, said it was highly unlikely that a failure of the winding mechanism was to blame because there were three back-up motors.

He added that it would not have been possible for the crew to cut the anchor chain and they would not have had time to engage a tension control mechanism to loosen it.

Frank Reiersen, 36, co-captain of the vessel, who was in Norway at the time of the accident, said: “It must have happened fast: the skipper only had time to send a Mayday signal. I presume everybody understood what was happening and those that had the opportunity would have grabbed their survival suits.”

The missing boy was completing a week of work experience that is required of all Norwegian teenagers.

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