torry
Torrey Canyon 1967
Widely regarded as the world’s first major marine oil spill, the Torrey Canyon incident began on 18 March 1967 when the ship, with a capacity of 120,000 tonnes, struck Pollard’s Rock between the Cornish coastline and the Isle of Scilly. A catalogue of errors by the captain and crew were later exposed.
A slick formed measuring 270 square miles, killing many thousands of seabirds and polluting hundreds of miles of coastline around Cornwall and France. This damage was contributed to by inappropriate response which included use of early dispersants, untested for toxicity and the decision to set fire to the remaining oil using aerial bombing and eventually napalm.
While the Torrey Canyon left a devastating environmental impact, it also resulted in the UK becoming a world leader in marine pollution response.
The Torrey Canyon oil spill on the southwest coast of the UK in the spring of 1967 is one of the world's most serious oil spills which left an international legal and environmental legacy that lasted decades. At the time the world's most serious oil spill, as of 2012 it remains the UK's worst, with an estimated 32 million gallons of crude oil spilled.[1] The wreck of the supertankerSS Torrey Canyon affected hundreds of miles of coastline in the UK, France, Guernsey, and Spain and mitigation efforts involved bombing raids by aircraft from the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy.[2]
Torrey Canyon left Mina al-Ahmadi with a full cargo of crude oil in February 1967, reached the Canary Islands in March, with an intended destination of Milford Haven in West Wales. On 18 March 1967 she struck Pollard's Rock on Seven Stones reef between the Cornish mainland and the Isles of Scilly.
Ship design[edit]
When laid down in the United States in 1959, she had a capacity of 60,000 tons but the ship was enlarged in Japan to 120,000 tons capacity. At the time of the accident she was registered in Liberia[3] and owned by Barracuda Tanker Corporation, a subsidiary of
Widely regarded as the world’s first major marine oil spill, the Torrey Canyon incident began on 18 March 1967 when the ship, with a capacity of 120,000 tonnes, struck Pollard’s Rock between the Cornish coastline and the Isle of Scilly. A catalogue of errors by the captain and crew were later exposed.
A slick formed measuring 270 square miles, killing many thousands of seabirds and polluting hundreds of miles of coastline around Cornwall and France. This damage was contributed to by inappropriate response which included use of early dispersants, untested for toxicity and the decision to set fire to the remaining oil using aerial bombing and eventually napalm.
While the Torrey Canyon left a devastating environmental impact, it also resulted in the UK becoming a world leader in marine pollution response.
The Torrey Canyon oil spill on the southwest coast of the UK in the spring of 1967 is one of the world's most serious oil spills which left an international legal and environmental legacy that lasted decades. At the time the world's most serious oil spill, as of 2012 it remains the UK's worst, with an estimated 32 million gallons of crude oil spilled.[1] The wreck of the supertankerSS Torrey Canyon affected hundreds of miles of coastline in the UK, France, Guernsey, and Spain and mitigation efforts involved bombing raids by aircraft from the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy.[2]
Torrey Canyon left Mina al-Ahmadi with a full cargo of crude oil in February 1967, reached the Canary Islands in March, with an intended destination of Milford Haven in West Wales. On 18 March 1967 she struck Pollard's Rock on Seven Stones reef between the Cornish mainland and the Isles of Scilly.
Ship design[edit]
When laid down in the United States in 1959, she had a capacity of 60,000 tons but the ship was enlarged in Japan to 120,000 tons capacity. At the time of the accident she was registered in Liberia[3] and owned by Barracuda Tanker Corporation, a subsidiary of