''Amoco Cadiz'' was a

VLCC An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined cru ...

(very large crude carrier) owned by Amoco Transport Corp and transporting

crude oil Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude ...

for

Shell Oil Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yor ...

. Operating under the

Liberia Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean ...

flag of convenience Flag of convenience (FOC) is a business practice whereby a ship's owners register a merchant ship in a ship register of a country other than that of the ship's owners, and the ship flies the civil ensign of that country, called the flag state ...

, she ran aground on 16 March 1978 on Portsall Rocks, from the coast of

Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...

, France. Ultimately she split in three and sank, resulting in the largest oil spill of its kind in history to that date.

Oil spill

On 16 March 1978 in a southwesterly

gale A gale is a strong wind; the word is typically used as a descriptor in nautical contexts. The U.S. National Weather Service defines a gale as sustained surface winds moving at a speed of between 34 and 47 knots (, or ).Ushant Ushant (; br, Eusa, ; french: Ouessant, ) is a French island at the southwestern end of the English Channel which marks the westernmost point of metropolitan France. It belongs to Brittany and, in medieval terms, Léon. In lower tiers of governm ...

at the western tip of Brittany, headed for

Lyme Bay Lyme Bay is an area of the English Channel off the south coast of England. The south western counties of Devon and Dorset front onto the bay. The exact definitions of the bay vary. The eastern boundary is usually taken to be Portland Bill on the ...

in the United Kingdom. At 9:46 am when the

supertanker An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk cargo, bulk transport of petroleum, oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quant ...

was north of Ushant and west of Portsall she turned to avoid another ship and her rudder jammed, full over to port. The captain shut down the engine and attempted to make repairs, but they were not successful. Meanwhile, the wind began blowing from the northwest, driving the ship toward the coast. By the time the

tugboat A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, su ...

''Pacific'' successfully attached a

hawser Hawser () is a nautical term for a thick cable or rope used in mooring or towing a ship. A hawser passes through a hawsehole, also known as a cat hole, located on the hawse.The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, third edition, ...

, it was 2:00 pm and the ''Amoco Cadiz'' had drifted closer to the shore. For two hours, the tugboat struggled to slow the vessel's drift, but then the towline parted. The captain of the ''Amoco Cadiz'' turned his engines on full astern and this helped slow the ship's drift. At 7:00 pm, the captain shut down the engines so that the ''Pacific'' could try to attach another hawser. The supertanker dropped one anchor, but the flukes broke off. At this point the supertanker was drifting at toward the Portsall Rocks. A new towline was successfully attached at 8:55 pm. ''Amoco Cadiz'' ran aground for the first time 9:04 pm. She rode a high wave over a spire of rock which she then was impaled on. The rock cut through the plating of her bottom and thrust into the network of piping and machinery of the pump room as well as rupturing the rear wall of number-four cargo tank. The engine room was flooded. She rolled and grinded on the rock for about 5 minutes until another huge wave lifted her off and she continued her southwesterly drift pulling the ''Pacific'' after her. She drifted through a rocky maze through the Portsall Rocks and at 9:30 pm she ran aground for the second time. The second grounding of ''Amoco Cadiz'' was on the Men Goulven rock from the shore. She hit the reef stern first and the bottom under the engine room was opened. She pivoted round to the port and stopped with her bow pointing toward land. She came to rest with her stern impaled on a rock about 12 meters under the surface and her bow on another six to seven metres deep. Between these rocks the depth was 25 to 30 meters. The ''Pacific'' had increased her towing speed, but shortly after 22:00 pm the second tow broke. After the second grounding the waves had broken ''Amoco Cadiz'' in two parts held together by distorted metal on the port side. By 24 March the two parts were completely torn apart and the rear section had been swung 90 degrees around from pointing south west to south east. On 25 March she was ready to break apart again and by 28 March the wreckage was further moved around by the tides and waves. 29 March she had broken in three separate pieces and it was decided to destroy her with

depth charge A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) weapon. It is intended to destroy a submarine by being dropped into the water nearby and detonating, subjecting the target to a powerful and destructive Shock factor, hydraulic shock. Most depth ...

s dropped from three Super Frelon helicopters. The Navy dropped twelve Mark 56 anti-submarine grenades each containing of high explosives set to go off under water, and she sank some 15 minutes later. Detonation of the charges was visible as huge water fountains and shook the ground ashore more than a mile away.Alt URL
/ref> ''Amoco Cadiz'' contained 1,604,500

barrels A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids, u ...

(219,797 tons) of

light crude oil Light crude oil is liquid petroleum that has a low density and flows freely at room temperature. It has a low viscosity, low specific gravity and high API gravity due to the presence of a high proportion of light hydrocarbon fractions. It generally ...

from

Ras Tanura Ras Tanura ( ar, رأس تنورة, Ra's Tannūrah, lit=cape oven, cape brazier, presumably due to the unusual heat prevalent at the cape that projects into the sea) is a city in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia located on a peninsula extend ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

and

Kharg Island Kharg or Khark Island ( fa, جزیره خارک) is a continental island in the Persian Gulf belonging to Iran. The island is located off the coast of Iran and northwest of the Strait of Hormuz. Its total area is . Administered by the adjacent ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. Severe weather resulted in the complete breakup of the ship before any oil could be pumped out of the wreck, resulting in her entire cargo of crude oil (belonging to

Shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard o ...

) and 4,000 tons of

fuel oil Fuel oil is any of various fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum (crude oil). Such oils include distillates (the lighter fractions) and residues (the heavier fractions). Fuel oils include heavy fuel oil, marine fuel oil (MFO), bun ...

being spilled into the sea. The US

NOAA The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...

estimates that the total oil spill amounted to 220,880 metric tonnes of oil.

Aftermath

In 1988 a U.S. federal judge ordered Amoco Oil Corporation to pay $85.2 million in fines; $45 million for the costs of the spill and $39 million in interest. In 1992, Amoco agreed to pay $230 million. The site is visited by leisure divers.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Oil tankers Ships built in Spain Shipwrecks in the English Channel 1974 ships Amoco Maritime incidents in 1978 Oil spills in France Ship grounding

Oil spill

Aftermath

See also

References

External links