For some reason I have previously failed to record the Viking Queen anywhere as being of historic interest to ship enthusiasts, and this is even though I was standing on the quayside at the Total berth in Torry, Aberdeen when it sailed into the Tidal Basin for the first time. It was 1984. Blimey, I thought, can these ships get any bigger. At the time I was captain of a modified UT704 of which more later. But the Viking Queen was 75 metres long and 16 metres wide, and was 3200 tons deadweight. I was later to find out that it was powered by four Wichmann engines delivering 12,390 bhp and giving it a bollard pull of 142 tons. It also had 3000 bhp of thruster power available to propel it sideways, as opposed to what was available on my brand new ship which was 500 bhp, plus whatever I could get by manipulation of the main engines and the rudders. This became a bit of a talking point between me and my owners.  The Viking Queen was a VS469 and was the first offshore vessel designed by the Vik Sandvik design house located then in Fitjar on the Norwegian island of Stord. This organisation continued to produce innovative vessels and more of their ships will appear in this feature. It was purchased by Wartsila in 2009. VS have also had a long relationship with Eidesvik then the owners of the Viking Queen. If the ship had a weakness it was the winch which had two drums, the work drum being capable of storing 1500 metres of 70mm wire and the tow drum 1400 metres of wire of similar dimensions. It appears that the winch might have been replaced when the ship became the Ocean King, this being based on a photograph of the ship in Bergen in 2007 and later information provided by Atlantic Offshore. The new winch, if that it what it was, had two work drums each with a capacity of 1400 metres of 70m wire, and a tow drum with a capacity of 1100 metres. In 2016 it was reported that the ship’s contract with Statoil had been terminated where it had been continuously employed since 1986 both under the ownership of Eidesvik and Atlantic Offshore. There was one sister ship, the Viking Troll which was also purchased by Atlantic Offshore and became Ocean Troll. It was converted into an ERRV (Emergency Response and Rescue Vessel) in 2013 and was chartered by Nexen on the UKCS. It appears to be still out there. That Viking Troll is not to be confused with a later vessel of the same name built in 2000 as the Stirling Iona, also a VS design.

Photographs: Viking Queen in Bergen at the time of its purchase by Atlantic Offshore by Victor Gibson and Ocean King in Atlantic Offshore livery in 2007 by Jan Plug.