The Wreck of the Torrey
Canyon.1967.
By Crispin Gill, Frank
Booker, Tony Soper.
1967.
Hard back with dust jacket
Cost 21 shillings New.
Incredible condition for age
Slight foxing to some pages
(worst page is in the
pictures)
In March
1967 an oil tanker, the Torrey Canyon, carrying 120,000 tonnes of crude oil,
ran aground on the Seven stones rocks near the Scilly Isles, in the English
channel. Over the next 9 days oil was seeping and then pouring from the wreck,
as salvage efforts failed and gale force winds proceeded to break up the ship,
until the British government, in a remarkable show of decisiveness, ordered the
RAF to bomb the ship to set the oil on fire and save the seas and beaches from
further pollution. Perhaps nowadays the pollution damage to the atmosphere
would be seen as the greater threat, but then the quantity of oil coming on
shore on the Scillies, Cornwall and Brittany, and the oiling of huge numbers of
seabirds, were unprecedented. The British deployed 1,600 troops and the French
9,000 to combat pollution on the beaches, in addition to many volunteers and
local people. Much of what is known about effects (or lack) of detergents and
dispersants on oil, and the cleaning of oiled birds, was learnt here (and
forgotten for later spills). The book, a contemporary account by experienced
journalists, charts the sequence of events- maritime, political, legal and
environmental with depth and rigour, and has chapters on seabird rescue and the
effects on wildlife and fisheries by Tony Soper.