Built as an 'Arctic Trawler' in Germany in 1949, she was used as a trawler in Norway until 1983 when she was completely rebuilt as a rescue standby ship for the North Sea oilfield. She was then renamed 'Grampian Rose'. New Deutz engines were installed together with new Scania generators. Accomodation facilities were totally rebuilt to accomodate a large number of passengers.

In March 1993 she was sold to a Southampton-based salvage company, Marine Salvage Services, run by Mr Roy Martin, ex-manager of Smit International (Far East). She was outfitted for salvage work and renamed 'MSS Petrel' under the British Flag. New winsches for 6-point mooring were installed as well as a new derrick with a 10 ton lifting capacity. The accomodation area, messroom and galley had an uplift. The equipment was overhauled and upgraded She was drydocked twice during the period April 1993 to November 1994. After the extensive outfit the Company, running out of funds, sold her to Hallstrom Holdings on 29 November 1994. Hallstrom did little with the ship until March 1995 when he installed a huge Side-Scan winsch, a Scorpio ROV with the ROV cable winsch, Additional generator, HPR system, Special Survey Navigational equipment with software, modification of davit for launching of the Scorpio ROV, Side-Scan blocks and the like.

In early June 1995 'MV Scorpio' was ready for sailing - first for a survey off the coast of Portugal then to the coast off Galicia (Northwestern corner of Spain) to locate the shipwreck of the 'Douro'. She then went to Falmouth to prepare for a contract off the coast of Somalia. Reefer capacity was increased, aircon installed throughout the ship, and special equipment was loaded on board, as well as provision made for a workboat to be loaded and launched from the ship. She went on to work in Somalia, Mauritius and Madagascar, and then completed a five-year special survey by Lloyds. The 'Scorpio' is completely involved in the search and identification of shipwrecks and cargo recovery.

This vessel was picked from many other vessels inspected in order to create a good Combined Survey and Cargo Recovery Ship. Although old, she was better equipped than most and is a particularly good sea ship. Her ultrasonic readings on the hull's steel is in most places 11-12 mm. She is robustly built bearing in mind that she was designed as an Arctic Trawler. Hallstrom has done lifeboat ROV operations in weather conditions up to seastate 5 with winds up to 6 beaufort. Owing to her design and depth of 4.75 meters she rolls very little when laying sideways in bad weather conditions, making it workable on the lee side for launching and recovering the ROV. The variable pitch makes it possible to carry out sidescanning in deep water.