Bisso Lufesa Salvages Luxury Passenger Vessel

The steel-hull M/V PARRANDA caught fire and sank Jan. 14 in 19.8 meters (65 feet) of water in the national park off Bartolome Island in the Galapagos Islands..

Bisso Lufesa, a full-service marine contractor, successfully salvaged a luxury passenger vessel that sank in the environmentally pristine Galapagos Islands.

The crew of the dive support vessel CABALLO DE TRABAJO raised the sunken M/V PARRANDA and safely towed it 80 nautical miles out to sea, where it was scuttled in a deepwater location designated by Galapagos National Park authorities.

The steel-hull M/V PARRANDA caught fire and sank Jan. 14 in 19.8 meters (65 feet) of water in the national park off Bartolome Island. There were no injuries aboard the luxury passenger vessel, which was rented by tourists for local excursions.

The 17-day project was particularly challenging because of the remote location 600 nautical miles off the coast of Ecuador and the environmentally sensitive area where the passenger vessel sank, said Mauricio Garrido, Bisso Lufesa’s director of business development for Latin America.

“The project had to be carefully planned and we had to pay very close attention to the area’s pristine habitat,” Garrido said. “Due to the remoteness, we had to be sure everything we needed was onboard.”

Pollution controls used by the salvage crew included an oil containment boom, a portable skimmer and oil sorbent materials. Structural debris also had to be removed from the seabed.

Bisso Lufesa is a full-service marine contractor providing services to the maritime, shipping, salvage and offshore energy industries. Headquartered in Lima, Peru, Bisso Lufesa combines the expertise, resources and experience of Bisso Marine, founded in 1890, and Lufesa Divers, founded in 1992. Services include diving, offshore construction, port operations, salvage and firefighting, pumping and lightering, pollution response and marine transportation. For more information, please visit www.bissolufesa.com.