"would ever see. During World War II, a force of British Commandos and US Army Rangers of the 29th Provisional Rangers successfully attacked a German radar installation on the island. In March 1978, the oil tanker ""Amoco Cadiz"" ran aground at Portsall about from the island, leading to major pollution of the Brittany coast. According to an old Breton proverb, """" (""He who sees Molène sees his pains / He who sees Ushant sees his blood / He who sees Sein sees his end / He who sees Groix sees his cross""). This proverb is related to the area around"
"Tanio oil spill The ""Tanio"" oil spill occurred March 7, 1980 when the ""Tanio,"" an oil tanker of Madagascan origin traveling from Wilhelmshaven to Civitavecchia split in two 60 km off the coast of Brittany, France in rough weather, spilling about 13,500 tons of cargo oil into the English Channel and killing 8 sailors. The stern section of the boat was towed to Le Havre by a British cargo ship despite the strong wind. The bow, however, sunk, leaking 5,000 tons of oil. After the spill, strong winds moved the oil toward the Breton coast. Oil began to wash a"
"Odyssey (tanker) Odyssey, which previously went by the name ""Oriental Phoenix"", was an oil tanker in operation from 1971 to November 10, 1988, when an explosion caused it to sink in the North Atlantic off the coast of Canada. The resulting spill remains one of the largest oil spills in world history. The tanker was off the coast of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia when it sank and released 132,157 tons (43 million gallons) of oil into the ocean. By way of comparison, 4.3 times as much oil was spilled by the ""Odyssey"" as from the much more famous"
"a portion of its cargo of oil. In 1984, a serious explosion on a tanker being repaired in the Haven resulted in three fatalities. In 1996, it was the location of the ""Sea Empress"" oil spill, initially thought to be one of the most devastating oil tanker disasters the UK has ever seen. In the event, recovery has been surprisingly good, perhaps partly because of the very strong tides. The comparable ""Torrey Canyon"" spill in 1968, a ship which had been heading to Milford Haven, affected shores further south around southern Cornwall and northern France, was actually far more damaging."
"sea. Onshore impacts were considered negligible as the slick traveled seaward. The only visible impact was the oiling of 1,500 gannets that were on a nearby island. The ""Castillo de Bellver"" was built in 1978 to carry light crude oil. On 6 August 1983, the Spanish oil tanker ""Castillo de Bellver"" was en route from the Persian Gulf to Spain transporting 250,000 tonnes (300,000 cubic metres) of light crude oil. Around off Table Bay, South Africa, it exploded and proceeded to burn. The crew abandoned the ship, which proceeded to drift off the coast, eventually breaking in two at around"
"or Lost"". MV Sea Empress The MV ""Sea Empress"" was a single-hull oil tanker that ran aground at the entrance to the Milford Haven harbour on the southwest coast of Wales in February 1996. The ensuing oil spill, Britain's third largest oil spillage and the twelfth largest in the world at the time, devastated a considerable area of local coastline and killed many birds, and continued to affect the Pembrokeshire coast for years afterwards. On the evening of 15 February 1996 the ""Sea Empress"" was entering the mouth of the Cleddau Estuary on her way into Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire"
"MT Sitakund Sitakund was a Norwegian motor oil tanker owned by Tschudi & Eitzen was sailing from Wilhelmshaven to Libya on 20 October 1968, when three explosions occurred, one of which tore a large hole in the side of the vessel. ""Sitakund"" burst into flames. Three crew members died in the explosion and subsequent fire, while the remaining 31 crew were treated in hospital for burns. The ""Sitakund"" had run aground, requiring that the tug ""Meeching"" come on site for rescue operations. She was beached on 21 October less than 2 km from Beachy Head. The Eastbourne Fire Brigade, the"
"Museum at a cost of €50,000 and is on display in the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks, as part of the ""Soldiers and Chiefs"" exhibition On 8 January 1979, 50 people were killed when a French oil tanker, the ""Betelgeuse"", was offloading at Whiddy Island when it caught fire, exploded, and broke into three pieces. The bay has had numerous shipwrecks over the years. In 1981, while cleanup efforts using sonar sweeps for the ""Betelgeuse"" were under way, the wreck of the French frigate ""La Surveillante"", which had been scuttled during a storm north of Whiddy Island on 2"
"crew of the ""Meeching"" and that of another tug from Dover fought the fire, however there was another explosion during the night, prompting the decision to leave the vessel to burn herself out. The insurers of the ship declared her a constructive total loss. She was later sent to Spain for scrapping. Around 500 tonnes of bunker oil and ballast were released in the incident. MT Sitakund Sitakund was a Norwegian motor oil tanker owned by Tschudi & Eitzen was sailing from Wilhelmshaven to Libya on 20 October 1968, when three explosions occurred, one of which tore a large hole"
"MV Sea Empress The MV ""Sea Empress"" was a single-hull oil tanker that ran aground at the entrance to the Milford Haven harbour on the southwest coast of Wales in February 1996. The ensuing oil spill, Britain's third largest oil spillage and the twelfth largest in the world at the time, devastated a considerable area of local coastline and killed many birds, and continued to affect the Pembrokeshire coast for years afterwards. On the evening of 15 February 1996 the ""Sea Empress"" was entering the mouth of the Cleddau Estuary on her way into Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire to deposit"
"debris. The cargo of 2,871 new cars – mostly from premium German and Swedish manufacturers including BMW, Volvo and SAAB – was removed from the wreck and recycled for the metal component. Most oil was removed from the ship's tanks soon after it sank, but during the salvage there was a 540-tonne oil spill, sparking concern. MV Tricolor MV ""Tricolor"" was a 50,000 tonne Norwegian-flagged vehicle carrier built in 1987, notable for having been involved in three English Channel collisions within a fortnight. MV ""Tricolor"" was originally launched in 1987 as ""Nosac Sun"". At the time of her collision with"
"was recovered from the wreck, has been erected in the hillside graveyard overlooking the harbour. The bodies of two unidentified casualties from the incident are interred nearby. Whiddy Island disaster The Whiddy Island disaster, also known as the ""Betelgeuse"" incident, occurred on 8 January 1979, around 1:00 am, when the oil tanker ""Betelgeuse"" exploded in Bantry Bay, at the offshore jetty for the oil terminal at Whiddy Island, Ireland. The explosion was attributed to the failure of the ship's structure during an operation to discharge its cargo of oil. The tanker was owned by Total S.A., and the oil terminal"
"Whiddy Island disaster The Whiddy Island disaster, also known as the ""Betelgeuse"" incident, occurred on 8 January 1979, around 1:00 am, when the oil tanker ""Betelgeuse"" exploded in Bantry Bay, at the offshore jetty for the oil terminal at Whiddy Island, Ireland. The explosion was attributed to the failure of the ship's structure during an operation to discharge its cargo of oil. The tanker was owned by Total S.A., and the oil terminal was owned and operated by Gulf Oil. The explosion and resulting fire claimed the lives of 50 people (42 French nationals, seven Irish nationals, and one British"
"incident occurred when a supertanker, the ""Torrey Canyon"" hit the Pollard’s Rock, tearing a gash in her side and spilling 860,000 barrels of oil into the sea. Westerly winds and currents caused the oil to pollute of the Cornish coast and of the Brittany coast. She now lies in of water. Large amounts of toxic detergent was sprayed on the oil in an attempt to disperse it and, along with the oil, accounted for the loss of much of the marine life and 15,000 birds. At the time it was the world's costliest shipping disaster, and to date, still the"
"tried to reach her had to abandon the salvage attempt after she too sustained storm damage. The wind turned her around and she headed back towards the coast, nearly entering Baltimore Bay when her propeller hit the rocks, stalling the engine. Within hours, ""Kowloon Bridge"" drifted east and ran aground on a submerged reef near The Stags rocks off West Cork in the Republic of Ireland. The resulting fuel spill spread out over the Irish coastline causing extensive damage to local wildlife, and financial losses for the local fishing fleet. In the spring of 1987, ""Kowloon Bridge"" split into three"
"oil"" to ""keep all Europe movin' from our base in Bantry Bay."" Gulf's operations from its Whiddy Island oil terminal in Bantry Bay ended on a night in January 1979 when the Total Oil tanker ""Betelgeuse"" exploded while unloading its cargo of Saudi crude oil. The commercial itself was simple, consisting of helicopter shots of the various vessels (beginning with the superstructure of the ""Universe Kuwait"") often in conjunction with tugboats to give the viewer a sense of scale regarding the size of the ships. One overhead shot shows five tugboats pushing on the port side of the ""Universe Ireland"""
"Island in Bantry Bay. The Total tanker was still not fitted with inert gas. The ""Energy Concentration"" did have this system, preventing an explosion when it broke in two on 21 July 1980 during discharge at Europoort. It has also saved many lives during the Tanker War. Washing with water in combination with the Load on Top system was replaced by crude oil washing (COW), a method developed by BP. The advantages were cleaner tanks, no corrosive sea water in cargo tanks and no polluted sea water being pumped overboard. On 10 October 1973 the Yom Kippur War begun, causing"
"same area in A Coruña in November 2002, in which a tanker, ""Prestige"", carrying 77,000 tons of oil split into two and spilled its cargo. About 10,000 tons of oil was spilled but the sunken hull of ""Prestige"" is still leaking oil from her tanks to this day. Aegean Sea tanker oil spill The ""Aegean Sea"" tanker oil spill was a spill that occurred on 3 December 1992 when the double-bottomed Greek-flagged oil tanker, ""Aegean Sea"", en route to the Repsol refinery in A Coruña, Spain, suffered an accident off the Galician coast. The ship had successfully passed all required"
"MV Braer The MV ""Braer"" was an oil tanker which ran aground during a storm off Shetland, Scotland, in January 1993, and nearly a week later broke up during the most intense extratropical cyclone on record for the northern Atlantic Ocean, the Braer Storm of January 1993. During the enquiry after the ship's loss, it was stated that the ship lost power due to seawater contamination of the ship's heavy fuel oil on 3 January. This occurred after a pipeline on the deck broke loose, allowing seawater to enter the vessel's bunker tanks via broken air vents. The loss of"
"Torrey Canyon oil spill The ""Torrey Canyon"" oil spill was one of the world's most serious oil spills. The supertanker ran aground on a reef off the south-west coast of the United Kingdom in 1967, spilling an estimated 25–36 million gallons (94–164 million litres) of crude oil. Attempts to mitigate the damage included the bombing of the wreck by aircraft from the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, causing a potential international incident, as the ship was not British, and was in international waters. Hundreds of miles of coastline in Britain, France, Guernsey, and Spain were affected by the oil"
"MV María Alejandra The María Alejandra was a Spanish oil tanker built in 1975 in Cádiz, Spain. She sank suddenly on high seas some 130-150 km off the coast west of Nouadhibou, Mauritania on 11 March 1980 after several internal explosions, presumably related to malfunctions in the inert gas system. Of the 43 people aboard, 36 perished. She was the penultimate ship built by Astilleros de Cádiz, (Cádiz) one of the main shipyards in Spain. Before its completion the original customer, the Italian company D'Amico Società di Navegazione, canceled the contract. Finally in 1977 she was acquired by Mar Oil,"
"MV María Alejandra The María Alejandra was a Spanish oil tanker built in 1975 in Cádiz, Spain. She sank suddenly on high seas some 130-150 km off the coast west of Nouadhibou, Mauritania on 11 March 1980 after several internal explosions, presumably related to malfunctions in the inert gas system. Of the 43 people aboard, 36 perished. She was the penultimate ship built by Astilleros de Cádiz, (Cádiz) one of the main shipyards in Spain. Before its completion the original customer, the Italian company D'Amico Società di Navegazione, canceled the contract. Finally in 1977 she was acquired by Mar Oil,"
"several barrels of fresh water they set off across the English Channel for Dunkirk. Before arriving at the beaches they met a broken down Thames pleasure steamer, crowded with evacuated troops which they immediately towed back to Ramsgate. Setting out once more for the evacuation beaches, this time they reached Dunkirk and started on the evacuation. Then, as Timbrell told CBC in 1980, ""On the third or fourth trip we got bombed. We were hit on the fo'csle. I lost about five of the crew and both my anchors snapped. The fuel pipes were severed so both engines died. We"
"taking on the riskiest ventures. It earned the company massive profits; it also earned them the worst safety record in the industry. In 1967, the giant oil tanker ""Torrey Canyon"" foundered off the English coast. Over of crude oil was spilled into the Atlantic and onto the beaches of Cornwall and Brittany, causing Britain's worst-ever oil spill. The ship was owned by the Bahamas-based Barracuda Tanker Corporation and was flying the flag of Liberia, a well-known flag of convenience, but was being chartered by British Petroleum. The ship was bombed by RAF jet bombers in an effort to break up"
"Allcock. The song commemorates the wreck of ""Braer"", personifying the sea as the protector of the Shetland Islands. Shetlopedia.com has some very detailed information on the ""Braer"". MV Braer The MV ""Braer"" was an oil tanker which ran aground during a storm off Shetland, Scotland, in January 1993, and nearly a week later broke up during the most intense extratropical cyclone on record for the northern Atlantic Ocean, the Braer Storm of January 1993. During the enquiry after the ship's loss, it was stated that the ship lost power due to seawater contamination of the ship's heavy fuel oil on"
"the three deployments. The load was split between the Irving Whale and the smaller Imperial Cornwall. On conclusion of the operation, both the Irving Whale and the Imperial Cornwall were towed to Halifax where the oil was unloaded. Irving Whale would become the subject of another oil spill on 7 September 1970 when she sank in the Gulf of St. Lawrence between Prince Edward Island and the Magdalen Islands. At present the wreck still rests alongside Cerberus Rock split into two sections. On August 28, 2015 a Transport Canada aircraft spotted an oil leak in the vicinity of the wreck"
"that 30,000 tons of crude oil burned and that the remaining 64,000 tons spilled into the sea. Because of the rapid evaporation of the light components, the crude oil quickly sank to the bottom of the sea in an area approximately 5.5 km in diameter. M/T ""Independența"" was the first of a series of five Romanian supertankers which were constructed by Santierul Naval Constanța in the 1980s. The sister ships were as follows: M/T ""Unirea"" (Union) – broke up and sank at the beginning of the 1980s in Bulgarian waters of the Black Sea. Official reports claim that the accident"
"gas platform protection. In 1978, ""Orkney"" coordinated the clean-up operation after the tanker ""Christos Bitas"" ran aground in the Irish Sea. She helped co-ordinate the search for survivors from the trawler ""Ocean Monarch"" off Fair Isle, in 1980 and recovered many of the bodies when the freighter ""Radiant Med"" sank off Guernsey in 1984. In 1993 she became involved in a fishing dispute with France around the Channel Islands. Paid off in April 1999, she was laid up at Portsmouth Dockyard. Following decommissioning, her bell, name board and honours board were presented to Orkney Islands Council. In 2000 she was"
"only stay afloat with four compartments flooded. ""Titanic"" sank 2 hours and 40 minutes after the collision. There being not enough lifeboats for all the passengers and the nearest responding ship () being too far away, 1,514 of the 2,224 people on board died, making it one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history. In 1911, ""Britannic"" supposedly was named ""Gigantic"" in its early phases, although this was denied by the White Star line. The third, and final liner to the ""Olympic""-class trio, ""Britannic"" was launched on 26 February 1914 at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast and"
"and sold at auction before she was scrapped, and now adorn buildings and a cruise ship. By contrast with ""Olympic"", the other two ships in the class, ""Titanic"" and , did not have long service lives. ""Titanic"" collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic on her maiden voyage and sank, while ""Britannic"" struck a mine and sank in the Kea Channel in Greece in 1916. ""Britannic"" never served her intended role as a passenger ship. Built in Belfast, Ireland, ""Olympic"" was the first of the three s – the others were and . They were by far the largest"
"cleaning expenses. MV Tasman Spirit The Tasman Spirit is a Greek registered oil tanker. The tanker was launched in February 1979 and was formerly called the ""Mabini"" and ""Kenko"". On July 28, 2003 she ran aground near the city of Karachi. Over 33,000 tons of oil spilled into the Arabian Sea in what is considered by some to be the largest environmental disaster in Pakistan's history. According to the IUCN 16 kilometres of coastline has been polluted. The ship's insurer offered 10 million rupees (about $180,000 US dollars in 2003) in compensation to the Karachi port authorities, and agreed to"
"Aegean Sea tanker oil spill The ""Aegean Sea"" tanker oil spill was a spill that occurred on 3 December 1992 when the double-bottomed Greek-flagged oil tanker, ""Aegean Sea"", en route to the Repsol refinery in A Coruña, Spain, suffered an accident off the Galician coast. The ship had successfully passed all required tests and revisions. The accident occurred during extreme weather conditions and affected the Galician coast resulting in ecosystem damage, as well as damage to the fishing and tourist industries in A Coruña. The captain and pilot were found to be criminally liable and the shipowner took on much"
"2s began to replace the Mk 1s and the Scimitars, completing the process by November of that year. In March 1967 the oil tanker Torrey Canyon ran aground on Seven Stones Reef near Lands End and started to leak thousands of tons of crude oil into the sea, putting nearby beaches at risk of pollution. In an attempt to minimise the damage to the environment, the Buccaneers of 800 NAS along with those of the training squadron 736 NAS were ordered to destroy the tanker and its cargo. Flying from RNAS Brawdy in Wales on 28 March 1967, eight Buccaneers"