Passengers were transported by fast ferry to Raiatea, a nearby island where they arrived at approx 8 a.m. Over the course of that day, they were flown on scheduled and charter Air Tahiti flights to Papeete.

The French Navy put out the fire and towed the ship to Papeete, where examination showed extensive damage to engineering spaces, although the passenger areas were mostly intact.

However, both Holland America Line (owner of Windstar Cruises at the time, itself a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation & plc) and Carnival Corporation & plc was unwilling to pay the costs involved, and even scrapping was uneconomical, because of the ship's small size and remoteness from shipbreakers in India, China, and elsewhere.

On January 22, 2003, with the agreement of Holland America and Carnival, the President of the Territorial Government of French Polynesia, Gaston Flosse, ordered the scuttling of the Wind Song.

That night the ship was towed into the Sea of the Moon between Tahiti and Moorea and sunk in 9,843 feet of water, at latitude 17.45S, longitude 149.48W.