Byford Dolphin

Built as Deep Sea Driller, Byford Dolphin was the first-of-class in the highly successful Aker H-3 series, designed by Aker Group and completed at the Aker Verdal shipyard in 1974. Byford Dolphin had an overall length of , breadth of and depth of . It had a maximum drilling depth of , and it could operate at a water depth of . As a drilling rig, Byford Dolphin was equipped with advanced drilling equipment and originally met strict levels of certification under Norwegian law, though in later years it was banned from Norwegian waters. Byford Dolphin was able to manoeuvre with its own engines (to counter drift and ocean currents), but for long-distance relocation it had to be moved by specialized tugboats. == Incidents and accidents ==

Byford Dolphin accident of 1983 On Saturday, 5 November 1983, at 4:00 a.m., while drilling in the Frigg gas field in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, four divers were in a diving chamber system on the rig's deck that was connected by a trunk (a short passage) to a diving bell. The divers were Edwin Arthur Coward (British, 35), Roy P. Lucas (British, 38), Bjørn Giæver Bergersen (Norwegian, 29) and Truls Hellevik (Norwegian, 34). They were assisted by two dive tenders, William Crammond (British, 32) and Martin Saunders. Medical findings Medical investigations were carried out on the remains of the four divers. The most notable finding was the presence of large amounts of fat in large arteries and veins and in the cardiac chambers, as well as intravascular fat in organs especially the liver. Prior to the accident, Norske Veritas had issued the following rule for certification: "Connecting mechanisms between bell and chambers are to be so arranged that they cannot be operated when the trunk is pressurized", therefore requiring such systems to have fail-safe seals and interlocking mechanisms. One month after the accident, Norske Veritas and the Norwegian oil directorate made the rule final for all bell systems. Among others, former crew members of Byford Dolphin and NOPEF (a Norwegian oil and petro-chemical union) have come forward and claimed the investigation was a cover-up. They claimed that the commission investigating the accident did not mention in their report the irresponsible dispensations on vital equipment requested by Comex and authorized by the diving section to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, which played a vital role in the accident's occurrence. They also alleged the accident was due to a lack of proper equipment, including clamping mechanisms equipped with interlocking mechanisms (which would be impossible to open while the chamber system was still under pressure), outboard pressure gauges, and a safe communication system, all of which had been held back because of dispensations by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate. Lawsuit The North Sea Divers Alliance, formed by early North Sea divers and the relatives of those killed, continued to press for further investigation and, in February 2008, obtained a report that indicated the real cause was faulty equipment. Clare Lucas, daughter of Roy Lucas, said: "I would go so far as to say that the Norwegian Government murdered my father because they knew that they were diving with an unsafe decompression chamber." The families of the divers eventually received compensation for the damages from the Norwegian government, 26 years after the incident. Other incidents On 17 April 2002, a 44-year-old Norwegian worker on the rig was struck on the head and killed in an industrial accident. The accident resulted in Byford Dolphin losing an exploration contract with Statoil, which expressed concerns with the rig's operating procedures. The incident cost the company millions of US dollars in lost income. == See also ==