This ecological disaster, unparalleled in its dire consequences, occurred early Saturday morning, March 18, 1967, with the largest Italian oil tanker, the Torrie Canyon, built in the United States and sailing under the Liberian flag. In terms of its parameters, it was one of the largest vessels in the world. The entire world press wrote that "Torrey Canyon" is a harbinger of a new era - the era of global oil transportation by sea, that the future belongs to the largest tankers, which will provide the entire population of the globe with energy raw materials. But the unfolding tragedy has become a serious reminder to the whole world: the imprudent and excessive man-made activity of people threatens with new disasters - such a global pollution of nature that can have irreversible consequences for the life of all mankind.
Captain of the tanker "Torrey Canyon" Pastrengo Ruggiati finished his watch at 2 am and went to rest in his cabin. The ship was sailing on a given course, and nothing foreshadowed trouble. But it was at this time that the captain's bridge noticed that Bishop Rock was located about 25 miles from the ship, directly on the course. In fact, there was nothing to worry about. The tanker could easily pass this dangerous landmark located west of the Isles of Scilly, although in the predawn haze the rock was not very visible. But since it was spotted by the ship's radar installation, then this is quite enough to navigate in time and pass by.
All night, the tanker was sailing exactly north, towards England. In its huge holds, he was carrying 120 thousand tons of crude oil from Kuwait, intended for pumping in Milford Haven (South Wales). According to the navigator's calculations, they should have rounded the Bishop Rock from the western side, but his calculations turned out to be incorrect.
On the bridge, instead of the captain, a senior officer, Silvano Bonfila, was on duty. When at 6.30 am he checked the ship's whereabouts, it turned out that they had lost their course. The oil tanker was sailing not to the west, as expected, but on the contrary - to the east of the Isles of Scilly. In fine, clear weather, any ship could safely pass through the narrow strait that separated these islands from the Lands End. But for a giant oil tanker like Torrey Canyon, problems arose immediately. The fact is that the tanker was 300 meters long and had a solid draft of 17 meters.
Finding a deviation from the course, Bonfilia immediately turned off the automatic navigation device and gave the command to turn in the direction of Bishop Rock. He intended to lead the ship to the cliff for an hour, and then calmly round it. His calculations were based on quite sound logic. Already at the end of the maneuver, he called the captain to inform him of the reason for the change in course. However, the captain was very dissatisfied with this decision and ordered to restore the previous course. He did not even go up to the bridge, as he was sure that nothing terrible would happen, and ordered to go across the strait. Bonfilia did not really understand what was behind the captain's decision, but did not dispute it and turned on the automatic navigation device again.
At 8 am the tanker was 14 miles from the strait. The captain again clarified the location of the vessel and corrected the course. He did this in such a way as to pass 6 miles from the Isles of Scilly, although there was a danger that they might stumble upon the rocks that were in this water area. Just in the middle between the Isles of Scilly and the Lands End were the "Seven Stones", as the sailors called the one and a half kilometer and very dangerous ridge of small underwater rocks that caused the death of more than one hundred ships. In normal weather and during low tides, the "Seven Stones" are clearly visible, and ships calmly bypass them. But when, during high tides, they hide under water, they can not be afraid of ships only with a low draft. But what about the heavily laden Torrey Canyon?
By the morning of March 18, 1967, the weather was fine, calm was formed on the sea, there was good visibility, and the tide, moreover, was at its highest point. Under these conditions, Captain Ruggiati should have taken only two miles away from the previous course, and the tanker would have safely passed the stones. But, in a strange way, all his subsequent actions, as it were, were specifically aimed at getting closer to the catastrophe.
At the beginning of the ninth morning "Torrey Canyon" was noticed by the sailors of the floating lighthouse, guarding the passing ships from the "Seven stones". They immediately realized that if the tanker continued to follow the same course, it would inevitably crash into the stones. At the lighthouse, a warning flag was dropped and rockets were fired. Alas, there was no response to the warning signals from the tanker. Captain Ruggiati, as if spellbound, led his ship straight to the ridge of stones. Later it turned out that as he entered the strait, he was going to make a turn to the left.
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While on the bridge, the first thing the captain did was turn off the automatic navigation device, taxied the ship with its bow to the north, and turned the device back on. But suddenly ahead, straight ahead, two fishing boats appeared. Torrey Canyon at full speed, at 16 knots, either had to bump into these two ships, or … There was no time left to think. Only now Ruggiati realized that he could not escape disaster. He still hoped to slip over the stones and gave the order to the helmsman to turn to the left as far as possible. The helmsman turned the wheel - to no avail. For some unknown reason, the vessel did not turn. The helmsman called for the captain, and Ruggiati finally realized that the helm did not obey the helmsman only because it was controlled by an automatic device. Ruggiati switched to manual control and the helm became obedient again. But vital seconds were already lost.
At 8:50 am, Torrey Canyon came across the first of the Seven Stones, hidden under water, and got stuck. For a moment, Ruggiati was speechless. He realized that he had brought his gigantic tanker - hardly maneuverable even in calm weather and under ideal visibility conditions - at maximum speed directly onto a group of rocks marked on all maps of the world. It was not just a blow, it could mean the death of his tanker. He immediately demanded information about the damage received. No hope - the tanker was sitting tightly on the rocks and oil was pouring out of its holds with might and main.
Ruggiati realized that his unforgivable mistake would be disastrous. But the worst was yet to come. The hole at Torrey Canyon was almost half the length of the hull - 150 meters! This meant that from all of his 23 tanks, crude oil began to pour out into the sea (approximately six thousand tons per hour). Black oily spots have already surrounded the tanker.
Ruggiati had no choice but to give the order to start pumping oil out of the tanker. He hoped that the vessel, thus lightened, would be able to lift itself off the stones and be afloat. All pumps were turned on, and a foamy stream of oil began to splash into the sea. At 11 o'clock, the first Royal Navy helicopter circled over Torrey Canyon. The crew of the rotorcraft immediately realized that the disaster that had happened was an oil spill of an unprecedented scale in world practice. An hour later, a special Dutch rescue tug "Utrecht" arrived at the scene. Rescuers boarded the Torrey Canyon to determine the extent of the incident. According to them, the tanker sat down on the rocks three-quarters of the length of its hull, and it was impossible to remove it with the help of tugs.
Alarms have already been transmitted to the Coast Guard. By two o'clock, three tugboats and two more Royal Navy ships arrived at the tanker. They began to spray detergents all over the spreading oil slick to prevent the oil from spilling into the sea. They were especially afraid that a gigantic spot would approach the shore and cause the death of birds, fish, and ruin many kilometers of beaches.
In London, which also received an alarming message, the alarm was sounded. At an emergency meeting, Defense Department officials discussed measures to combat the oil spill spreading towards the beaches of West Country. By the evening of the same day, almost 40 thousand tons of crude oil poured out of the tanker into the sea, which seized more and more areas of the sea. The water turned oily black.
The pumps on the tanker had failed by that time, since all the steam boilers were flooded with water. The very next day, March 19, dozens of Royal Navy vessels appeared around the helpless tanker. They surrounded Torrey Canyon and began pouring detergents along the edges of the growing patch, but they were not very successful. It was necessary to do something urgently, and then they decided to call for help from specialists from America who already had experience in dealing with such misfortunes.
The chief of the Royal Navy's Rescue Service arrived aboard the tanker, accompanied by a US representative from the Los Angeles-based Union Oil Company. Rescuers believed that the ship could be saved only if the weather did not worsen and the tanker did not break in half. However, the situation had already gotten out of control, and on March 21, an explosion occurred in the aft superstructures of the tanker with such force that it tore its skin. By that time, the entire Torrey Canyon crew, with the exception of Captain Ruggiati and three officers, had been removed from the rescue boat, but the explosion killed the Dutch rescue team leader.
There was a danger that there could be new explosions, but the work begun could no longer be stopped. The next day, March 22, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, whose dacha was on the Isles of Scilly, decided to convene an emergency meeting of government experts and scientists to identify all possible ways to save the coastline, its beaches, fauna and flora from the drifting oil mass. The messages he heard were very dark. First, the wind rose and the sea began to storm. There was a danger of collision between ships that were maneuvering near Torrey Canyon. The same wind threatened to carry the oil spills not to the ocean, but to the shore.
A day later, the wind intensified and reached, as at the time of the crash, a speed of 36 kilometers per hour. Rescuers were already making final preparations to lift the Torrey Canyon off the rocks, but the wind suddenly changed its direction and the huge oil slick swept directly to the shores of Cornwall. From the moment of the crash, according to preliminary estimates, 50 thousand tons of oil have spilled out into the sea, another 70 thousand tons remained in the tanker.
And then came a rainy day, March 25, when the oil reached the coast. Thousands of gulls, cormorants and other seabirds floundered helplessly in the thick black mud. The waves washed the oil onto the sand, it reached the beach fences, appeared on the asphalt paths. At that moment, three tugboats, having secured the cables on the Torrey Canyon, began to pull it off the rocks. Air was pumped into the empty holds to increase the buoyancy of the tanker, but this attempt was unsuccessful: the tanker turned only eight degrees.
The next morning, a storm arose unexpectedly, although in the afternoon the wind died down a little. And again (now four tugs) began to pull off the stuck tanker. And again failure: all the cables broke. It was then that the irreparable happened, the waves completed what the tugs had begun - the tanker broke in half. At the same time, another 50 thousand tons of oil spilled into the sea. On March 27, the entire Cornwall coastline from Lands End to Newquay was black with oil.
Huge oil spills began to approach the northern coast of England and just as extensive - to the French. It seemed that the elements had come “to the rescue” by a spring tide unprecedented in the last 50 years. And then in London it was decided to bomb the remains of Torrey Canyon. For three days, fighter-bombers bombarded a tanker that had been broken into pieces. After the first hits, due to the rising fire and smoke, it became difficult to aim bombing from an 800-meter height. Nevertheless, several dozen dropped bombs reached their goal. The fighters poured their fuel into the raging flames, and practically all the oil remaining in the tanker burned out.
A meeting of the Commission of Inquiry, which was considering the case of the Torrie Canyon tanker disaster, held in Genoa, found Captain Ruggiati guilty of his death.
From the book: "HUNDRED GREAT DISASTERS". N. A. Ionina, M. N. Kubeev