SS Torrey Canyon

1967

Seven Stones, the RAF's burning oil Location: Seven Stones Reef, Isles of Scilly, England · Coordinates: 50.04°N 6.15°W · Casualties: 0 · Survivors: all hands · Depth: 30 m (broken on reef) · Cause: grounding — Struck Pollard's Rock on the Seven Stones reef between the Isles of Scilly and Land's End at 08:48 on 18 March 1967 after a navigational error by her Italian master. Holed in six of her eighteen cargo tanks; 119,000 tonnes of Kuwaiti crude spilled into the English Channel. Remnants of the hull were eventually bombed and napalmed by the RAF and Fleet Air Arm in a ten-day attempt to ignite the remaining oil. · Fate: bombed · broken up on reef · Type: oil tanker · Liberian flag · Tonnage: 119,328 DWT · Crew: 36 · Flag: Liberia (Union Oil) · Launched: 1959 Liberian-flagged supertanker, one of the largest of her generation, running from the Persian Gulf to Milford Haven. Struck Pollard's Rock on the Seven Stones reef at 08:48 on 18 March 1967. 119,000 tonnes of Kuwaiti crude spilled into the English Channel, the first major supertanker oil disaster. The RAF and Fleet Air Arm bombed and napalmed the wreck for ten days in a failed attempt to burn off the cargo; the spill contaminated the coasts of Cornwall, Brittany, Guernsey, and Jersey and directly produced the 1969 Intervention Convention. The Vessel The SS Torrey Canyon was a Liberian-flagged crude oil tanker, built at the Newport News Shipbuilding yard in Virginia between 1958 and 1959 and commissioned on 17 October 1959. She was originally built as a 66,000-deadweight-ton tanker; she was subsequently lengthened in 1964 at the Sasebo yard in Japan to 120,890 deadweight tons, making her at the time of her conversion one of the largest crude oil tankers in the world. She was registered under the Liberian flag of convenience (though she was owned by the American Barracuda Tanker Corporation, a subsidiary of the Union Oil Company of California) and was operated on charter to the British Petroleum Company. Her specific operational role was the transport of Persian Gulf crude oil from Kuwait to British refineries on the Welsh coast (specifically the Milford Haven terminal). The Milford Haven run was a standard Persian Gulf-to-Europe route; Torrey Canyon had made approximately 15 previous round trips on the route before 18 March 1967. Her master on her final voyage was Captain Pastrengo Rugiati, 47, an Italian career merchant marine officer. Her complement on 18 March 1967 was 36 officers and crew, predominantly Italian and Liberian nationals. The specific operational pressure on Torrey Canyon's voyage of March 1967 related to the tide constraints at Milford Haven. The tanker's deep draft (approximately 17 metres when fully laden) required high-tide access to the Milford Haven terminal; the specific tide windows at Milford Hav The Disaster At approximately 08:50 on 18 March 1967, SS Torrey Canyon grounded on the Seven Stones Reef, approximately 25 kilometres east-northeast of the Isles of Scilly. The grounding was at approximately 15 knots speed; the specific rock formation struck was a submerged pinnacle of granite approximately 6 metres below the water surface. The grounding caused substantial structural damage. Torrey Canyon's hull was ruptured in multiple locations along her central cargo section; approximately 30,000 tonnes of crude oil began escaping into the English Channel within the first 24 hours of the grounding. The specific pollution situation was unprecedented in scale: no prior maritime incident had released crude oil in quantities approaching this scale. The immediate salvage response was organised by the Dutch salvage company Wijsmuller BV, which had been granted salvage rights by the Barracuda Tanker Corporation. The specific salvage operation involved multiple attempts through 19-28 March 1967 to refloat the ship or to extract the remaining cargo. The specific operations were complicated by: (i) the continued deterioration of the ship's hull under the combined stresses of the grounding and ongoing Atlantic weather; (ii) the specific difficulty of pumping cargo from a grounded tanker in open-ocean conditions; and (iii) the progressive spread of the oil slick across the English Channel and the Atlantic approaches. On 29 March 1967, the British government, under Prime Minister Harold Wilson, mad