A previous design featured in this series was the ME 303 developed by Maritime Engineering in Norway. This company was taken over Kvearner in the late 1990s and their first offering under the KMAR designation was the KMAR 404, several of them being constructed in 1998 at the company yard at Leirvik and a further three at their Kleven facility. The ships were not really ground-breaking and are noteworthy more for their early distribution and their history than for their capabilities. They were powered by two Wartsila diesels offering 15,000 bhp giving them a bollard pull of about 180 tons, and with two thrusters forward and one aft, they had adequate manoeuvrability. But in an age which was beginning to require winches with massive wire storage, with their rather moderate capacity of 2000 metres of 76mm wire on each of their two drums, they were hampered. The first to enter service were originally owned by Sanko and Maersk but they were to pass rapidly from company to company, starting with Tidewater, who had collected six from the original owners. Typically the Leopard Bay was to become the William R Croyle, and the Maersk Dispatcher was to become the Ray J Hope (Fantastically photographed by James McLellan at work in the South Atlantic). So by now, as we are coming to understand, Tidewater were updating their fleet with second hand European tonnage. However they were not standing still, and in 2004 a new company, set up in Norway by former executives from Viking Supply, managed to purchase all six of the Tidewater 404s. In addition they bought one which had been owned by Bourbon; this last vessel had started out as the Havila Charisma (Photographed entering Aberdeen by the author in 2002) and had become the Bourbon Charisma.  In addition to the vessels which had become the whole of the Deep Sea fleet two of the type were built at Kvaerner Kleven for District Offshore, as the Skandi Stord and the Skandi MØgster, and one which was to become the Lady Sandra was also built at the same yard. Despite the fact that the KMAR 404s were in no way super ships the Deep Sea Supply timing of their purchase seemed to be just right and there is little doubt that the vessels made a fortune for them during what we now recognise was an oil boom. During that time it seemed that operators were prepared to pay anything for anchor-handlers for what always appeared to be urgent rig moves. Back in 2007 I acted as a towmaster for a rig shift which employed three ships at a combined cost of £250,000 a day, and so the 404s made good money. Today they seem to have mostly migrated to the South Atlantic except for the Lady Sandra assigned by Farstad to it subsidiary IOS in Australia.  In late 2016 this ship was sold to an undisclosed client, but the relevant internet sites indicate that the name has not changed, although it is now registered in India.