The Torrey Canyon was one of the world’s first big super tankers. Nearly 300meters long by 40 meters wide. She was built in the U.S. in 1959 and had her initial capacity of 60,000 tons doubled following a refit in Japan. She was owned by the Barracuda Tanker Corporation, a subsidiary of the union oil company of California.
On the 18th of March 1967, she was chartered to purchase petroleum and carrying a cargo 120,000 tons of oil from Kuwait to Milford Haven in Southwest Wales but around 6AM the captain worked to find the ship was further to east—was intended.
To go around the west of the Isles would have been the safest route but it would have added 40 miles and precious time so he made the faithful decision to take the 7 mile wide deep water channel that lay in a 20 mile stretch between the Isles and lands end.
As the almost unmaneuverable ship negotiate to the channel, an under experienced junior officer was in charge of navigation. The Italian captain, Pastrengo Rugiati who was also the bridge realized they were heading for a collision with a fishing fleet but it was confusion as to whether the ship was in manual or automatic stirring mode and by the time this was resolved, it was too late. Cruising at 17 knots, the Torrey Canyon hit Pollard's Rock in the Seven Stones Reef and tore open 6 tanks.
The resulting oil spill was an environmental disaster. Several methods of addressing the accident and containing the spill were attempted. To begin with a Dutch Salvage team try to float the ship of the reef but this was unsuccessful and resulted in the death of one of the team members. As the ship broke apart after several days on the rocks, the high seas meant that the use of foam booms to contain the oil was met with limited success.
Over 190 km of Cornish coast and 80 km of French Coast were contaminated by the oil spill. With an estimated 15000 seabirds killed, along with large numbers of marine organisms and the attempts of breaking up the 430 square km leak actually exacerbated the damage, there was a heavy use of solvent emulsifies which were officially referred to as detergent to down play the toxicity of their elements. 10,000 tons of these were sprayed on to the floating oil and the beaches.
With the crisis threatening to worsen, English Prime Minister Harold Wilson held a mini cabinet meeting at the Royal Naval Station called—where it was decided that setting fire to the remaining oil was the only option left.
On Tuesday the 28th of March, the fleet air arm sent Buccaneers from those amounts to drop 42 1000 lb bombs on the Torrey Canyon. The operation was voucher to success even thought the navy was criticized in the media when a quarter of those bombs fail to hit a station retarget. A station retarget 300 by 40 m no less after the bombs, the Royal Air Force deployed 100 jets to drop cans of aviation fill to ignite the oil.
Over three days, a total of 160 bombs, 11000 gallons of kerosene, 3000 of napalm and 16 rockets were aimed at the ailing ship. She finally slit from view on the 21st of April and inquiry into the accident was held in Liberia where the ship was registered and it laid the blame squarely the fleet of Captain Rugiati and his decision to take a short cut to save time.
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