Overview

On March 18 1967, owing to a navigational error, the Torrey Canyon, carry over 100,000 tons of crude oil, struck Pollard's Rock in the Seven Stones reef between the Cornish mainland and the Scilly Isles. An inquiry in Liberia, where the ship was registered, found the captain, Pastrengo Rugiati, was to blame because he took a short cut to save time in getting to Milford Haven.

Some 50 miles (80 km) of French and 120 miles (190 km) of Cornish coast were contaminated. Around 15,000 sea birds were killed, along with huge numbers of marine organisms, before the 270 square miles (700 km2) slick dispersed. Much damage was caused by the heavy use of so-called detergents to break up the slick - these were first-generation variants of products originally formulated to clean surfaces in ships' engine-rooms, with no concern over the toxicity of their components, and many observers believed that they were officially referred to as 'detergents', rather than the more accurate 'solvent-emulsifiers', to encourage comparison with much more benign domestic cleaning products.

External Links

Torrey Canyon - wikipedia http://www.axfordsabode.org.uk/torreycn.htm