A major incident has been declared after the huge research vessel RV Petrel toppled over at Edinburgh's docks, leaving multiple people injured.
Shocking images of the incident, which occurred shortly before 9am on Wednesday morning, show the stricken 250ft ship tipped over to one side at the Imperial Dock in the Leith area of the city.
But what is the RV Petrel, who owns it and how long has it been in the capital? We take a closer look.
What is RV Petrel and who owns her?
Launched in 2002, the Research Vessel (RV) Petrel's primary mission is to explore historically-significant ship wrecks at "challenging depths and conditions". It takes its name from the petrel, a tube-nosed seabird, known for its ability to skim just above the surface of the water.
The ship was previously owned by the estate of Microsoft cofounder, the late Paul G. Allen, who died in 2018.
The US Navy purchased the ship in September 2022 for a reported fee of $12.4 million (£10 million).
Allen, who was ranked as the 44th-wealthiest person in the world by Forbes, with an estimated net worth of $20.3 billion (£16.6bn) at the time of his death, was known for his passion for military history and had made it his mission to fund a research vessel to uncover a fleet of shipwrecks from various different battle sites.
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Why is the ship important?
RV Petrel has had great success in this area in recent years, discovering the wrecks of an astonishing 30 sunken warships, including the USS Indianapolis, the ship that delivered the first atomic bomb components to Tinian Island base in 1945, and aircraft carrier the USS Hornet, which played a key role for the US after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
August 2015 saw Petrel's team commended by the UK Ministry of Defence after the research vessel played a vital role in the recovery of the bell of HMS Hood. The bell was unveiled the following May by the Princess Royal to mark the 75th anniversary of the 1941 sinking of the famous battlecruiser, which remains the Royal Navy's largest loss of life (1,415) from a single vessel.
In October 2019, Petrel's crew were credited with the discovery of another ship lost during the Second World War: the Fletcher-class destroyer the USS Johnston. Scattered more than 20,000 feet beneath the Philippine Sea, it's the deepest shipwreck discovery to date. To put this into context, the wreck of the RMS Titanic lies at a depth of 12,600 feet beneath the North Atlantic.
The ship's long list of major discoveries in the field of marine archaeology have led some to hail RV Petrel as one of history's most important research and exploration vessels, alongside Jacque Cousteau's Calypso and Captain Cook's legendary Endeavour.
What was RV Petrel doing in Edinburgh?
RV Petrel has been moored at Leith since September 3, 2020.
It was announced earlier that year that the ship would be moored indefinitely due to the "impact of the Covid-19 crisis". Subsea director Robert Kraft said at the time that he was "proud" of the ship's many successful missions and that there were hopes Petrel could one day return to service.
At the time of the ship's tipping incident on March 22, 2023, the RV Petrel was drydocking at Leith's Imperial Dock, Scotland's largest deep water impounded dock. It is unclear at this stage how significant the damage will be and what this means for RV Petrel's future.
Edit: We originally stated that RV Petrel is owned by the late Microsoft co-owner Paul Allen. This is no longer the case, as the US Navy purchased the ship in September of last year.
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