Torrey Canyon

Presentation

The Torrey Canyon is in the beginning a tanker of 60 000 tons builds by the Shipyard Newport News Shipbuilding, in Virginia (the United States) and delivered on January 9th, 1959. It was jumboïsé with the Japan in 1964 for finally reaching a capacity of 120 000 deadweight tonnage; modifications having been carried out by engineers of nationality, language and technologies different.

After jumboisation, its overall length is of 267,30 m for a width except members of 41,25 Mr. At the time, his capacity makes of him the thirteenth larger ship with flood. Its maximum Tirant of water is of 17,20 Mr.

He is propelled by a principal engine diesel 2T coupled to a propeller which enable him to carry out a speed of free road of 17 nodes. Its capacity to be operated is rather restricted: it needs approximately 5 miles to once turn off the stopped engines. Its equipment of navigation is composed of a Radar, of a LORAN which at the time of the facts is not operational, of a sounder and a Sextant. It is thus not equipped with a DECCA nor of a modern system of positioning of type GPS, then in the course of experimentation.

The ship-owner of the Torrey Canyon is a subsidiary company of the Union Oil off California, based with the Bermuda and which bears the name of Barracuda Tanker Corporation. The ship is then recorded with the Liberia and is chartered by the British Petroleum. Its crew is composed of Italians.

February 19th, 1967, it leaves the Kuwait with a full cargo of 120 000 tons of crude oil in direction of Milford Haven via the Cape of Good Hope. It is ordered by the commander Rugiati.

Navigation

The Torrey Canyon installs Persian Gulf via the Cape of Good Hope towards the Canary islands and sails at a mean velocity of 16 nodes. It passes between the island of Tenerife and the large Island of the Canaries the afternoon of the March 14th and then takes a true road with the 18° to pass to 5 miles islands Scilly. The objective is to take the tide of the March 18th at the evening at the entry of the port of Milford Haven. If not, it will have to wait until the March 24th, date of the next favorable tide. The last point with the sextant is made on March 17th at midday, and places the ship at less than 300 miles at the south of Scilly Isles on the estimated road.

The captain lets for instruction of night call it as soon as Scilly Isles appear with the radar or at the latest with 06:00. He leaves to lie down with 02:40 on March 18th.

With 04:00, the second captain takes the quarter, the autopilot being fixed with the course gyro 018°, and estimated speed is of 15,5 nodes. The wind is of force 5 and the little agitated sea. The wind and the current were not taken into account in calculations of regard.

With approximately 05:00 the second captain lights the radar and regulates it on the scale 40 miles.

In accordance with the orders it calls the commander with 06:00 and says to him that Scilly Isles do not appear yet on the radar. Towards 06:30 they appear on before port side with approximately 24 miles, the wind and the current off-set the ship in the east of the estimated position.

With 06:55 the second captain makes the decision to come to the 006° right on Bishop Rock, it informs the commander quickly of it, and the answer of this last is expeditious: “Which said to you to make this decision? ”. There ask then so for a return to the 018° Scilly Isles would remain clear. The answer was: “perhaps”. Abruptly the captain orders to return to the initial course, the second carries out. Following this conversation the commander goes up to the footbridge towards 07:00. At this time, the ship would have been with 18 miles slightly in the south-west of Holy Marie, and with 28 miles of Seven Stones.

With 08:00, change of quarter: the commander, the lieutenant and an experienced sailor take the quarter. The lieutenant is then in load of navigation, the autopilot is engaged.

To 08:15, Torrey Canyon passes Scilly Isles. The commander operates on starboard, in direction of Seven Stones, in order to avoid the nets of the fishing vessels, all the more approaching the rock. At the conclusion of this operation of avoidance of the fishing vessels, the commander gives the autopilot in function, and to chart in order to will check the road and the dangers to the table which are there. The point of 08:38 will not be accepted by the commander, the lieutenant having determined it by only one /distance raising. The point following to 08:40 seems to be righter and makes it possible to position the ship in the south of Stone Rock to the 198,5° with 2,5 miles. At this time the current and the wind are still not estimated by the lieutenant of quarter. The danger being close it becomes necessary to operate to avoid the failure. The commander orders to the sailor to change road and to come to north. In haste it passes manually comes on the left to the 000° and returns by pilot car.

After a new positioning radar the road always brings on the reef. An emergency road must then be adopted. It is now necessary to come to the 340, the pilot car is stopped, the manual mode is put in function, the commander makes a point radar again and goes on the table to chart. The sailor shouts with the commander that the clicks indicating the passage of the degrees do not get along, but the captain does not hear it. Suddenly, ordering it realiserealises that he does not hear these famous clicks. As it had already arrived before it sinks to check the fuses. Those are not roasted.

He then seeks to check the good performance of the hydraulic pump, a damage who had already occurred before too. For that he telephones the machine, in his eagerness he calls the kitchen, the cook says to him: “oh! captain, the breakfast is been useful”…

The commander then checks the switch of the autopilot and realizes which is the problem, the pilot is still on automatic, it passes the bar then manually and changes course. Too much late, with 17 nodes, the Torrey Canyon is caught full whip Pollard' S Rock which belongs to the reef of Seven Stones, and tears on 6 cisterns.

Causes

This catastrophe, as it is generally the case, was due to a succession of events, minors in oneself but who, combined, involved the sea risk. The accident of the Torrey Canyon is the consequence of the following reasons:

Construction of the ship

Problem of maneuverability. The ship is little operating
Conception of the Autopilot. The pilot car functions well but the site of the lever can involve the selection of a bad management style of the bar.

Desideratas of the company

Planning of the operations of the ships. To await the Canary islands before saying to the commander the final destination is certainly good for the business; however, if that involves an additional stress of the people in load, they are not so good. To be in a hurry by time increases the probability of errors and bad decisions.
To equip the ships according to plannings. All the charts necessary were not on board. If the company waits to announce the destination with the ship it must at least make sure of the update of the charts essential.
the lieutenant makes an error of obvious navigation. It proves that it is not very qualified and has little experiment.

Errors relating to the operations

No real taking into account of the danger. The commander seems to have been slow to realize what occurred. Its short night can be blamed.
Time constraint. In several catastrophes, time played a big role.
the young lieutenant dealing with navigation. On a side, it must acquire experiment and the commander can check his work but in this case its error played a paramount role.
Procedure of shortened navigation. The solution of facility is in the human nature, this is why effective procedures are necessary to avoid this kind of short cut. In this case the wind and the current were not taken into account in the calculation of the regard.
Decision making secondaries. Aucunes of the decisions of the commander, by themselves, are not bad (except perhaps for that where it decides to borrow the channel with a ship not operating); it is the combination of all these secondary decisions which led to the catastrophe.
Lack of control on the situation: To be without any control on the apparatus to control in a dangerous situation is never an good idea.

Analyzes

No mention was deferred concerning the efforts to rectify the road between the point of midday and the first position radar. The combined effects of the wind and the tide were ignored, and it seems that the Radio Direction Finder (radiogoniometer) and the sounder were not in service for the establishment of the position of the ship. Under these conditions, to be unaware of the total drift makes impossible to follow a road melts with the 018°. It would have been advisable to leave towards the east immediately. For that it would have been necessary to change plan and to pass between Seven Stones and Wolf Rock.

Being unable to determine with precision where Scilly Isles were to appear with the landing, it would have been more advisable on behalf of the commander to take measures to sail towards the east while noting in its orders of night: “if the ship is towards the east at the time of the landing, then we will have to control towards the west to pass around Bishop Rock, and to take a road to pass to 5 miles to the east of the lightship of Seven Stones and will have to announce it. ” By thus making it would not have solely taken one foot of reasonable pilot for any possibility, but would have prevented in the event of bad positioning from being found more towards the east that what was indicated by the regard.

But no solution was worked out for such a possibility. The commanders, human above all, do not like to admit their errors but wisdom is to admit the minor errors to prevent that they are not transformed into major errors. It is not extraordinary for commanders to become prisoner of their pride and to persist in actions that they know erroneous (hoping to extirpate situation without admitting their error). It is what with due happening here.

Having abused the second captain for his implicit criticism of the initial road (“Which required of you to make this decision? ”), ordering it Rugiati felt obliged to preserve the road as a long time as it knew it sour and that the second is not in position to testify to a change. It is also the reason for which it did not pass to the east of Seven Stones.

At all events there was no nautical instruction for Scilly Isles. That discredits so much is little the procedures of voyage planning in force on board. Knowledge lack (which could be brought by this source) about a navigation around Scilly Isles and its dangers neighborhood, they was very perilous to try such a passage. But the first precaution being to reduce speed, the option was immediately abandoned. If it had had the nautical instructions in hand and if it had studied them before the approach, it could not have missed the warning which says that while sailing between Scilly Isles and Land's End, a ship should not pass between Seven Stones and the lightship but to the east of this last. To pass between Seven Stones and Scilly Isles is not recommended especially for the large ships.

Although prudence would like that one passes sufficiently far from Scilly Isles, it appears obvious for any sailor of experiment which they could have passed from each with dimensions to a security distance. There appears as obvious as there is enough water between Scilly Isles and Seven Stones, it was not more advantage to pass in this place rather than to the east of Seven Stones, passage which was quite as practicable. Moreover, ordering it Rugiati having previously borrowed this passage over another ship as a second captain, was familiar of the place.

However the quarter with advanced and does not make it possible any more the officer to make evolve/move his ship like desired. Indeed fishing vessels are presented on before port side opposing the operation envisaged by the officer of the watch to reconsider port side after having passed Scilly Isles to pass between them and Seven Stones. An uncertainty weighs always at this time there on the precision of navigation. It appears that the 2nd lieutenant has positioned for eight hours per raising/distance radar whose inaccuracy did not enable him to apprehend the force and the direction of the total drift.

The position deferred to 08:38 by the lieutenant is rejected by the commander considering it obviously vague. The following position obtained with 08:40 is apparently not false and is used like reference to the route to follow, however this position was suspectée sullied with error and can have contributed to the failure which has occurred a few ten minutes later. The position observed with the radar with 08:40 in the 198.5° of Stones Rock'n'roll at a distance from 2,5 miles, would imply a road melts with the 010° to fail on Pollard' S Rock. Being given that the ship controls full north as from this moment there it appears clearly that the undergone current would have been of 2,3 nodes carrying to the east. Out of after the diagrams of current of the zone in sharp water, the current in this place would have varied 134°/1 node with 089°/0.6nds. This would be equivalent to an average current of 0,8 node carrying to the 112° implying a drift of the ship of 003° and which proves that the real position with 08:40 is at 0.4 miles with the N/E of the position observed. Without this error the Rugiati captain could have taken immediately, and not 6 or 7 minutes later the necessary measures to save the ship.

Another disturbing point of this drama is that little time before the commander does not arrive at the footbridge the second captain passes the bar manually. However after the changing of quarter all the approach of Scilly Isles was done as an autopilot as the orders of the commander stipulated it. It should be noted also that two changes of road carried out out of manual bar were followed of a return out of bar car 10 min before the failure. These successive changes of mode, involved a confusion which according to the final analysis inevitably brought the accident. The fact that the ship remained out of automatic bar close to Scilly Isles and near ships to sin, constitutes a directly ascribable serious error with the commander. The apparent refusal to consider a reduction speed as an alternative to the change of course is more comprehensible but quite as inexcusable.

It was envisaged to come on port side at once avoided the north-eastern point from Scillys, thus leaving Seven Stones on starboard. This operation appears deprived of marine good sense, but could have proceeded without encumber.

It should be thought that for the sailors carrying out of great crossings, the action on the bar which is the best way of operating can have an action restricted by the presence of other ships or shelves as it was the case for Torrey Canyon. Whereas the idea of touching the chadburn at the time of a great crossing, unless it is not forced by the elements or in the urgency, is quite simply scorned. What shows that a confusion enters the prudence and the timidity of certain officers. One generally expects that a commander has an ensured air, and to order an energetic measurement or even a simple reduction of pace right because navigation encounters a small difficulty opposes to the image confidence that many commanders oblige to give.

Consequences

Means implemented in the fight against pollution

The immediate answer was to try to save the ship. 30 000 gallons of oil are escaped and were moving towards the coasts helped by the wind and the current. Royal Navy used deterging to try to disperse oil. The Torrey Canyon started to break and an crisis cell was held with the aeronautical base of Culdrose. It was decided to put fire at the remainder of the cargo in order to prevent that pollution does not worsen.

In same time the HMS Daring is in the middle of its preparation with Portland. Its presence was necessary to ensure the safety during the bombardment envisaged.

On Tuesday, March 28, 1967, the air force sends 42 bombs on the wreck, follow-up of gas oil jerry cans in order to form a gigantic blazing inferno on the two sections of the wreck. The air force then sent Napalm in order to light oil until the wreck does not contain any more of oil.

Others

The name of this ship inspired with Serge Gainsbourg a song, which is on the album Comic Strip .

External bonds

File on the accident of the '' Torrey Canyon '' (Cedar)

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